Christmas
by jones2000
Summary: AU. Seventh in the ‘Cursed’ series. ‘Tis the season, and the Winchesters are back on home territory. Jobs have been slow coming this time of the year, and the brothers decide to take a well earned break. Of course, nothing is ever that simple.
1. Jingle Bell Rock

_On the last episode of Supernatural: Cursed_

"You want us to go to _Scotland_?!"

"So you're the bounty hunter. How did you manage to get out of jail?"

"Trust me, these boys are the ones you're after."

"You said her name again."

"This job, y' don't just get out of it, even when you're old. Y' can't, after y' know what's out there."

"Christo."

_"Hold on. Show the world, above and below, how long you can live." _

_

* * *

_

It was the night before Christmas. Snow was thick on the ground and he could hear the children's choir singing their hearts out for the Christmas service in the Town Hall. His dad and brother weren't back yet, so for a while he could pretend. He sat with his nose pressed flat against the window, staring out at the snow and the lights and the Christmas tree in the square.

He longed to go out there and run through the snow. He wanted to go sledding for the very first time in his life and make a snowman without Dad saying it looked evil. He wanted…

He wanted to be a normal kid on Christmas Eve, and for a while he could pretend.

But Dad said he couldn't go out. They were never allowed to go out when Dad was away, and lately he'd been taking Dean as well, so there was no one to talk to. He missed his brother, and wondered what Dad was making him do, but his dismay was washed away by the fact that it was Christmas Eve.

Dean had dutifully taken his letter to Santa down to the post office, and Dad had even smiled that morning at breakfast, so he was absolutely certain that things were looking better this year. Dad had completely forgotten last Christmas, and Sam had long since stopped expecting any presents, but surely he would remember.

Of course he would. After all, he was _Dad. _

Smiling, he climbed into bed. Dad and Dean would be home soon, it was snowing, he could still hear the carollers out his window, and his little family would be together for Christmas.

* * *

"Dean?" He opened the door experimentally. "Are you awake?"

"No."

Silent on bare feet, he crept over to the lumpy mattress. All he could see of his brother was one arm that hung limply over the side of the bed and dragged along the floor. A blanket that had a large, frightening clown pattern on it covered the rest of him. Sam had complained non-stop until Dean had caved in and given him the quilt with the Millennium Falcon on it.

He didn't like clowns.

"You know what day it is?" He reached forward to drag the blanket from Dean's head, and his brother's hair sat up at all angles. Last week Dad has sat him on a stool in front of him and chopped his hair back until it was barely a brush on the top of his head. Dean had sulked for a day or two until the pretty teenager across the way who was staying with her mother made an offhand comment that it suited him. He spent the rest of the day preening.

"D'you know what day it is?"

"Tuesday."

"Well, yeah. But apart from Tuesday." Sam's hand tightened on Dean's shoulder and gave it a little shake. _Dean _didn't do this. _Dean _was the one that remembered the birthdays. _Dean _brought out the packet of chocolate eggs on Easter. _Dean_ was the one that stayed up with him to watch the New Year fireworks on TV.

_Please don't be turning into Dad. _"D-_eeean_." He whined.

His brother leisurely rolled onto his back. There was a goofy grin on his face, a goofy grin Sam hadn't seen since he started going out in the middle of the night with Dad. "Good morning, doofus." He greeted, crossed his hands behind his head. "Enjoy your night off? You better not have been watching any blue movies or the Sergent will have you."

Sam pulled a face. He knew what sex was, but at nine going on ten, thought it was a pretty revolting idea. In his mind all girls still had cooties. "What day is it?" He pressed.

The obnoxious grin became more of an affectionate smile as Dean withdrew a sloppily wrapped parcel from under his pillow. "You thought I forgot, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't." Sam said defensively. Dean racked his fingers through his hair and yawned.

"Might be a bit squashed." He warned. "I accidentally sat on it yesterday."

Sam reached into the pocket of his pyjamas, withdrawing a small box wrapped in a length of blue ribbon. The boys exchanged gifts. "You know Dad'll kill us if he finds out we've been buying 'non-necessary' items." Dean shook his present, looking slightly disappointed that it was so much smaller than Sam's.

"It's Christmas." Even so, Sam knew how much of a survivalist Dad was. He'd impressed on both his sons not to get particularly frivolous if they could get away with it.

"You gonna open it or not?"

Sam ripped open the present. A glossy, slightly battered paperback book slipped into his hands. Surprised, he turned it over. "'_Criminal Law'?_" He glanced up at his brother. "Are you feeling alright?"

Dean actually looked embarrassed. "Got it for a ten down the street." He murmured. "You're into all that civics stuff, so I thought-"

"It's cool." Sam grinned. _I would have preferred a baseball bat, but still… _"I might even read it one day." He teased, tucking the book under his arm.

"Bitch." Dean muttered under his breath.

"What did you just call me?"

"You're like a girl. A bitchy girl." Dean elaborated.

"How do you figure that?"

"Well, you whinge all the time. Non-stop. Nag, nag, and nag. The next natural progression from nag is to _bitch_."

"I do not _bitch._ I have never _bitched_ in my entire life-" Sam stopped when he realised that Dean had effectively lured him into a verbal trap. "You're an ass, you know that? A real _jerk._"

"_Ooh_." Dean smirked. He slit the ribbon with the knife he kept near the bed and peered into the box. "What the hell is that?"

Sam felt himself going red. "It's a… protection charm." He wriggled around on Dean's bed as his brother gave him an amused look. "I thought… with all the mad stuff Dad has you doing… it's only a bit of a joke…"

Oblivious to Sam's incoherent spluttering, Dean pulled the cord out of the box and placed the small amulet around his neck. "There. I'm wearing your goofy necklace, now you have to read my goofy book."

"Deal." Both brothers shook on it. "Merry Christmas, Dean."

"Merry Christmas, Sammy. Should we wake the rare and endangered Sasquatch, you reckon?" Dean questioned, glancing out to where their father had once again fallen asleep in the armchair. "He wouldn't have gotten us anything." He warned his little brother.

"Just to hear him say it _for once _would be nice." Sam said.

"I _dare _you to poke him."

"You're so immature."

"Bite me."

Sam slipped from the bed and stood up. Even at nine he was almost as tall as Dean was. He held the book before him like a shield, and cautiously took a few steps toward John Winchester. "Dude, I was kidding!" Dean hissed. "Nay, good knight. Don't approach the sleeping dragon lest ye be slain!"

John wasn't asleep. Sam could tell as soon as he tilted his head to the side to gauge who was approaching him. "Morning, Dad." He stood opposite his father. Dad didn't say anything. One eyebrow tilted, giving the boy permission to continue.

"Um, well, I know you don't like us going out in daylight to the shops, but it's Christmas, and-" The glare became frostier but the man still didn't speak. _Of course he knows what day it is. He never really forgets. He just doesn't do anything about it. _"And, um, this is from me and Dean." He placed the box on the table and turned away, eager to leave behind his resentful, brooding father.

"I know what day it is." Dad's voice was dry and scratchy and caught Sam by surprise. "And it's just another day."

Sam's eyes grew wide. "But-"

"That was irresponsible. Going out like that, someone could have recognised you. Recognised you were my son. I had expected certain idiot recklessness from Dean, not you." John kept his careful monotone as he gave his blank stare.

In all the years of insults, training and running, Dean had created a hard shell around himself that no one else could get into to stop him from being hurt. No such thing with Sam. He loved his brother, but didn't want to be like him. No matter how hard Dad tried to turn them into drones.

"But it's Christ-"

"I don't care. Take it back. The same with whatever you two boys have. That way you'll learn how to budget your money for when you really need it."

He couldn't move. His hands were clenched by his sides. He couldn't remember ever being this angry, not even when Dad deliberately ignored the fact that Dean had gotten that award for excellence in Science. "No." He finally whispered.

"What did you just-?"

"We're still kids! We're still allowed to do things like this!"

"Samuel Winchester, you need to learn to live off only the bare essentials-"

"It's a watch, Dad! Only a stupid watch!" Sam cried, seizing the package off the table and waving it in the air. "Why do you always have to be like this? Is it what Mom would have wanted?"

That got a reaction. John rocketed off his chair, his face twisting.

"Don't you _dare _throw your mother in my face." He growled. "You have _no idea _what she would have wanted."

"Neither do you! Running, leaving in the middle of the night, never in the one place long enough to make _any _friends? Why can't you be a normal dad?"

"Sam! Dad! Stop!" Dean tried to interject, his voice loosing it's impact as it cracked on the last syllable.

John advanced. With a sudden urge of terror, Sam dropped the present and watched hopelessly as the heel of Dad's boot carelessly crushed it. His eyes bored into the boy, daring him to continue. Sam's heart was beating mile-fast, but he knew he had to finish what he started. After all, it was _his _idea to get Dad that watch.

"Mom's dead." He squeaked. "And nothing you can do is going to bring her back."

And that was when John hit him.

"Dad!" Dean bellowed, shooting across to Sam's side.

Sam stared up at his father, his eyes brimming with tears of anger and frustration. "I hate you." He whispered, putting every ounce of emotion he had left in his little nine-year-old body into those three words. "I _hate _you."

There, on the floor, were the mangled remains of the watch. The nice man who owned the jewellery store on the corner had engraved the back with a message because the boys had asked him politely.

_Merry Christmas, Dad. Love Dean & Sam. _

And from that day on, as said by John himself, Christmas became yet another day to Sam.

Unfortunately, also from that day on Dean had also felt compelled to reopen his little brother's mind to the joys of Yuletide. Which, of course, made him even more obnoxious than usual, which was saying something.

"Stockings and candy canes and mistletoe, oh my."

The two were sitting on the hood of the Impala, eating chips with gravy as flecks of snow settled in their hair.

Sam grunted in reply.

"Come on, Sammy. 'Tis the season."

"Don't make me hurt you."

"Bring it on, dog boy."

They were silent as they watched the shoppers pass them by, staggering out to their cars with mountains of brightly wrapped parcels. Christmas songs blared out of almost every store on the block, and there was a charity Santa ringing his bell on the corner. A charity Santa that looked to Dean suspiciously like a balding, fat hobo in a dyed sweater.

"He's making a list, and checking it twice." He hummed a few off-tune bars. "You know, for once in the crapper that has been my life, I'd like to get a real Christmas present."

"We always _did_ have real Christmas presents. I mean, when we, like, didn't forget, or were doing something else at the time, or just didn't feel like it…"

"That's my idea. Something that just isn't completely _bogus_. You know, some gadget that spins and flashes and makes weird noises and you're never a hundred percent sure what it actually _does._"

"You're just a big kid inside, aren't you?"

"But Daddy, all the other girls have one."

Sam laughed.

"D'you think Jo'll mind us crashing at her place for the season?"

"Dude. Since when have you given a toss about imposing on others? Was it 'cause of that… uncomfortable process you went through a few months ago?"

"What?"

"You know, the one where you suddenly grew a conscience."

"Hey, hey! I just don't like the idea of showing up all unannounced. I have a reputation to consider."

"What the hell are you talking about? We always show up all unannounced." Sam flicked away his last chip. "Whatever, man. Let's just go before the snow sets in."

Each radio channel was seemingly only airing Christmas music. "You gotta be kidding me." Sam whizzed the dial back and forth as Dean flung the Impala into the corner, a manic grin on his face to be back behind the wheel of his beloved. "You mind _slowing it down _a little?" Sam shouted over the strains of _Jingle Bell Rock._

"You're a wuss, Sam. Live a little."

"Since the rest of my life could be all of the next ten minutes?!"

"Tut, tut. Goodwill to all men and all that junk, right, Tiny Tim?"

"Oh no, don't you dare. Don't you dare start quoting from _A Christmas Carol._"

"What, me? The Dickens, you say." Dean grinned.

"I hate you."

"I know. But your loathing is so _amusing_."

Sam hated snow. He hated carols. He hated mistletoe; it made him all itchy. Jess had once asked why he was so anti-Christmas; he said it was complicated. She had nodded knowingly and let the matter drop. She knew him well enough to tell that 'complicated' was a codeword for 'family problems.'

"You loser."

"What, loser-loser or a super loser?" Dean grinned, as unflappable as always.

"Eyes on the road, please!"

"Ha. Look, Sam. No hands,"

"DEAN!"


	2. Silent Night

It was the night before Christmas. Snow was thick on the ground and she could hear the carollers over the battered wireless in the corner. Her dad wasn't back yet, and for a while she could pretend. She sat with her nose pressed flat against the window, staring out at the snow and the cars and the drunks passed out in the front yard. Waiting for Daddy.

She was supposed to be in bed by now, because Daddy said Santa didn't come until all the boys and girls were asleep, but Mom had said she could stay up to wait for Daddy to come home. But that was okay. She liked staying up and talking to her big Roadhouse family, the ones that kept her and Mom safe and kept all the secrets.

She fit in here like she didn't fit anywhere else. Mom tried all the time to get her interested in things other little girls her age liked, but they were so _boring._ No one ever talked about ghosts or monsters, and the last time she did, she was sent to see that funny doctor with the square glasses that smelled like paper. Mom had got really upset, but Daddy thought it was _so_ funny.

"Jo, honey, get down from the window. Why don't you come over here and help me?"

Jo obediently scrambled down from the sill and went over to her mother, pulling at a lock of messy blonde hair. Disappearing under the bar for a moment, she re-emerged with her small, three-legged stool. She clambered up beside her mom. Soon she would be tall enough to reach the counter all by herself.

"Well, there's the princess."

The man who had spoken had a head full of dark brown curls jammed under a filthy cap. Jo gave a gap-toothed smile to him, the person that Mom insisted she call 'Uncle Bobby', but really, she was getting a bit old to call all Daddy's strange friends 'Uncle'.

"That's three dollars fifty." She piped as Ellen handed a beer over the counter.

"She's a real natural." Bobby grinned, reaching out to ruffle her already scruffy hair. Mom could spend hours playing with her blonde hair, but she could never get it to sit down and do what she wanted it to do.

"Yeah. Isn't she?" There was a note of pride in Ellen's voice, and she smoothed Jo's fringe back over her head.

The bell tinkled as the door opened. The three of them were blasted with an icy-cold wind, and snow was scattered across the welcome mat. Mom's hand slipped under the counter and Bobby reached into his coat. Maybe it was just what Daddy called 'civilians' asking for directions again, but Mom said you could never be too careful.

Jo could see three people. Mom placed a hand on the top of her head and she sank behind the bar, out of view.

"John?" Ellen asked, and her voice quavered. Jo peeped around the side of the bar. She knew John. He was one of Daddy's friends, and would give her lollies whenever he came. Mom said he had kids her age too, but she'd never seen him with them. She'd asked where they were once, and he'd just given her a funny look before asking Daddy about his last hunt.

John's face was red. There was a big cut down his forehead and there were lots of holes in his shirt. He kept slipping, and one of the other men was holding him up.

"Ellen." The man said. He had hair the same colour as Jo's. Max really was her uncle, this time. He was Daddy's little brother. Then she saw that his eyes were red. Not red 'cause he'd been hit, but because he'd been…

"What's wrong, Uncle Max?" She asked.

Max started like he'd been tapped on the shoulder by a bear. He let go of John and John slipped to the floor, holding onto a bar stool for support.

"Jo, sweetie, why aren't you in bed?" He sounded upset. She didn't like it when her family got upset.

"Mom said I could wait for Daddy."

Max's face contorted and Mom raised her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide. Jo looked between him and Mom and John and the other man who had come in with them, a scary-looking man with black hair. And she asked the question she never wanted to ask.

"Daddy _is _coming home, isn't he?"

"Jo, Uncle Max, John and I need to talk. Go to bed." Mom said. Jo opened her mouth to argue, but Mom shook her head. "Now."

"Yes, Mom."

She didn't go all the way to her room. She wanted to know what happened. Why Uncle Max looked like that, and why John couldn't look Mom in the eye, why she was sent away like that. And where was Daddy?

_Maybe he isn't coming home. _She shivered in dread.

Mom was clutching Uncle Max's arm, crying. Uncle Max was blinking furiously, his hands clenched into fists. Bobby had come over, and stood between him and John, protecting John from… Mom and Uncle Max?

"I'm sorry." John whispered. Mom cried harder. "I did everything I could…"

"Liar." Uncle Max's voice was a whisper. "Tell her the truth. Tell her what really happened, you cowardly bastard. Tell her how you killed my brother!" And he lunged forward for John's throat. Only Mom hanging onto him and Bobby standing in front of John stopped him.

Jo couldn't take it any more. She turned and ran, with shouts of _'you're not welcome here anymore' _echoing in her ears. She slammed the door of her room.

Daddy would never leave me and Mom alone. It must be someone else. It has to be! It's a lie.

But she knew it wasn't. Uncle Max didn't lie.

"Daddy's dead." She whispered. _No, no, no._

And from that day on, Jo resigned herself to only getting bad news on Christmas.

Even though mistletoe made her sneeze, her mother insisted on hanging a garland of the stuff above the staff door. _You never know, _Ellen had said mysteriously before wandering off to do whatever the hell it was she did when Jo wasn't there.

"If you've set me up again…"

"Dear, would I really do that?"

There was snow up to the door that had been dangerously compacted into ice by the progression of dour-looking men to the door. Jo launched herself into playing the part of the gracious hostess and social butterfly, while discreetly milking the floor for news.

And through the patented technique of Harvelle hunting and gathering, she managed to unearth something rather unusual.

Unusual…er. The hard men with scars and their missing limbs baulked at telling it, and generally had to be swayed with generous amounts of alcohol and the thought of a possible grope to finally open up on the case of the Christmas Ghost.

For about two weeks or so, since the beginning of the season really, there had been some sort of supernatural entity that would suddenly show up out of the blue, terrify the hell out of a few of the big wigs on Snob Hill, and disappear again. Oh, and it was dressed in a Santa suit.

Yes, a Santa suit.

Normally Jo would have skipped over a case as trivial as this. It was probably just kids messing around, or if she was really lucky some sort of poltergeist that only manifested itself around the Christmas holidays, but she was bored. It had been a slow year.

There wasn't much she could get away with doing without her mother peering over her shoulder, and she was certain that Ellen was monitoring the calls to Jo's friends on the outside even though the woman was a self-confessed luddite.

Yep, even this little pissy job would do to get her away from here for a while.

Don't get her wrong, she loved her mother unconditionally. And if anyone ever tried to hurt her she'd hunt them down and tear them apart with her teeth, but she was a bit constricting. As she got older, she finally realised why. If Ellen acknowledged that her daughter was growing up, the further she would be distanced from the memory of Bill.

Jo often wondered about that._ How could you do it? How could you love someone even after you found out who they were and all the flaws they had? How could you be that head-over-heels about that person that they were all you could think about for thirty friggin' years? Even after they died and left you all alone?_

No, Jo wasn't a believer. She once imagined the notion of love at first sight… a young girl's fantasy. Ellen would often berate her for being too pessimistic, aged beyond her years, and would gaze at her with those sad, mournful eyes that wordlessly said _I wanted something better for you _until Jo became too uncomfortable and left the room.

Other people wanted normal, but Jo was just fine where she was. Okay, maybe there was the odd demonic plague, possession and pea soup incident, but nothing she couldn't handle. She had embarrassed herself years before on her first hunt by trying to jump in at the deep end, but now thought she had everything worked out pretty well.

The phone rang. "I'll get it!" Jo sang out before her mother could swoop down like a hawk. Juggling a beer, a tray and several knives, she picked up the receiver. "Harvelle's Roadhouse."

Okay, so the Roadhouse may have burned down, but Mom liked to have some constants in her life. On the flip side, it became a code over time. Letting the caller know they'd reached the Roadhouse was to tell them without so many words that the line was temporarily safe for them to come out with whatever it was they'd called to discuss.

Since she'd come back to find her mother, Jo had fielded calls for many hunters, and had gathered more case information in the last week than she had for the past three years. Though you had to be fast with bagging the jobs, or all the good ones would be taken.

That probably sounded stupid.

And for the first time in her life she really wondered about her mother's role in all this. Ellen was starting to get on in the years, but still worked the rounds like a pro and the jobs her punters tipped her off on she passed on to those she deemed the most capable to handle the situation. _Like a mob boss, really…_

And if Ellen Harvelle _had_ wanted a man whacked, all she had to do was put the word about. There were ten people in the bar right now that Jo knew without a doubt would have gladly stepped up to do Mom's bidding should she ask.

"_Have you been a good girl this Christmas?"_

Jo put on her best 'disapproving mother' voice. "Who the hell is this?"

The voice on the other end sounded mortified. _"Oh, Christ, it's Ellen."_ He whispered to someone beside him. That somebody let out a bark of helpless laughter and Jo couldn't help but smile. Sounded like _they _were back.

"Heya, Dean." Across the room her mother's ears almost visibly pricked and she turned around to give her daughter a long warning glare.

"_Dammit, you want to give me a heart attack?" _Dean exclaimed. _"I thought you were your Mom!"_

"Thanks." Jo said dryly. "Is there a purpose to this call or did you just ring to make sleazy Christmas innuendos?"

"_Now, would I do that?" _He tried to sound genuinely hurt. _"Yes, I do have a purpose in this call."_

"Mmhmm." She stuck her tongue in her cheek. "What do you want?"

"We – me and Sammy boy were coming over for a bit and drop in on you girls. If you could put up with us for a couple of days…"

"I don't think that's a good idea." Jo said flatly.

"_Why not?"_

"It's just that, you know I'd love you, um – you _guys _to come around any time. Just not now." If the Winchesters arrived only to find her leaving on a hunt, they'd insist on going with her to hold her hand. Mind you, she did love the boys as brothers, but too much was too much.

_"Eh? You've got awkward written all over you."_

"I just… Mom's got mistletoe all over the place."

_"I don't think I've ever heard a lamer excuse. Well, it's a pity that you don't want us round."_

"Why?"

"Kinda 'cause like we're already here."

Jo glanced up. Dean walked through the door snapping his phone shut. Sam came close behind, ducking so his head wouldn't scrape on the doorjamb. Ellen made an indistinct motion with her hand and both boys dutifully stamped the snow off their boots. Both their cheeks were pink with cold.

And although part of her leapt to see them again, another part couldn't help thinking _oh no._

"Well, what brings you boys blowing back our way?" Ellen asked, hands on her hips. Several hunters were staring at them; Ellen stared back. _Yeah, I'm talking to a Winchester. What you gonna do about it?_

They all backed down. To take on Ellen was to take on the Roadhouse.

"Ah, you know. A hankering for soft beds, fine women, and maybe Christmas dinner." Dean gave his most charming smile.

Mom didn't even blink. One eyebrow rose doubtfully. "You want to stay for Christmas? Here? With us?"

"What's wrong with that?" He asked defensively.

"Just… come as a surprise. Your Dad never really went in for all those after-school-special holiday moments."

"Yeah. Tell me about it." Sam said. "The thing is, Dean seems to think the car's indestructible, but we'll never make it out of town if is starts snowing again. And I'm not really looking forward to spending however long snowed into the cab with him."

"Hey! Watch what you say about my car!"

"It's always a pleasure, boys."

"We can _hear _your sarcasm, you know."

The corner of Ellen's mouth twitched despite herself. Each time they left she resolved herself to hating them, for what the brothers had helped turn her daughter into, but every time they ended up back on her doorstep, bedraggled and bruised, her animosity evaporated. Call it maternal instinct, she felt like she needed to be there for the boys.

_They're old enough and ugly enough to look after 'emselves._

"Hell, why not?" She shrugged. "But if you stay here you help behind the bar."

"Ma'am, yes ma'am."


	3. If We Make it Through December

It was the night before Christmas, and instead of being inside and having cold turkey sandwiches before climbing into a warm bed, he was out in the snow and the ice freezing his ass off.

So naturally, Christmas to Dean was cold and wet and hungry with _Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer _on a continuous loop in his head because his sort-of girlfriend had been singing it with her little cousins before he'd left.

Yep, because nothing said it was Christmas more than a reindeer with self-esteem issues and a guy with a beer gut.

He crunched through the snow back to the house, wondering whether they would still be up. Her parents didn't like him; they thought he was weird and unusual. Which, let's face it, was more or less true.

The door had been left open. She'd been anticipating his return, which made him feel strange and satisfied at the same time. Dad was quick to notice the relationship was becoming strictly more than professional, and had practically burned his ears off with his lecture about not getting involved with anyone while working a case.

Sometimes Dean had to wonder whether his old man was actually _human_ under all that angst.

He slipped into the house, careful not to disturb anything or make too much of a noise. He slung his coat over his shoulder and walked into the kitchen, thinking with his gut and wondering whether her mom had any more of those little pink cakes with the froofy icing on top.

A noise made him turn around. She was there, standing behind him with her arms crossed, staring up at him with those big brown doe eyes of hers. Dean smiled as he saw her, and his stomach did another strange flop as she reached out for him.

_What an interesting reaction._

She didn't speak, and just shrank into his arms, like she didn't want to be anywhere else. Then she whispered something in his ear. "We have to talk."

_Damn._

She led him out into the yard, and he wondered how she wasn't cold in her thin top. "Cassie-"

"Don't talk." Her voice was still soft, and she'd wrapped her arms around herself to prevent herself reaching out again. Whatever this was about, it was killing her just thinking about it. "I traced you." She said.

Dean didn't say anything. A feeling of dread slowly filled him. "Checked it out. There's no record of a Dean Winchester ever working as a journalist with one of the firms in LA. You lied. To those people. To _me._" She sounded so hurt, so _betrayed._

"I didn't mean…" Didn't mean to what? His sentence trailed off into nothingness. How do you defend yourself against an accusation that was _true_? "Well, actually…" There were a dozen lines he could have spun. He was freelance, worked the circuit. He was on a probation period before they hired him. He was only a paperboy that had come down with the boss to fetch and carry.

Yes, there were several dozen lines he could have spun to save face, but he didn't.

"I'm leaving tonight." It wasn't supposed to come out like that. He was supposed to wine her and dine her and slink away quietly in the morning while she was still asleep.

"What? Why?"

"I – It's complicated."

"Right." Her gaze mirrored indignation and frustration. "And now he's just going to leave. Way to pick 'em, Cassie." She berated herself, tugging painfully on a curl. She paced away from him and twirled on the spot in the snow.

"Who are you?"

"You don't want to know." He said earnestly.

"Why don't you let me tell you that for myself?" She challenged

"Because you wont understand."

"How do you know I wont understand if you wont let me?"

"You'll think I'm crazy. Hell, half the time I think I'm crazy."

"Just tell me who you are!" Her voice grew to alarming levels and Dean glanced back toward the house, hoping no one had woken. _The truth. Oh God. Now what do I do?_

"I… hunt."

That was not the answer Cassie was expecting as her arms dropped to her sides in disbelief. "You _what_?"

"I… hunt monsters." As he said it a second time, his voice seemed to grow stronger. "Me and my dad, that's what we do. All these deaths that are completely unexplainable, crop failures, sudden diseases. All of these things that _aren't natural. _We find out what's doing it and kill it."

He said it. And suddenly he felt like he could breathe freer, like a massive weight had been lifted from his chest. It was such a relief to finally tell someone, anyone.

"And you're going to meet your dad to go… monster hunting?" Cassie looked almost pained as she said it.

"Yes."

She took hold of his shoulders. Gazed deeply into his eyes. "Dean." She said. "You're _insane_."

That was _so _not the reaction he was looking for.

"They're all just stories parents make up to get their kids to eat their vegetables and clean their rooms. It's not real."

"But… I'm telling the truth."

She looked back up at him, waiting for him to grin and tell her it was all a joke. But then she saw his deadly serious expression. "Oh God. You really think you _are _telling the truth."

Dean shook off her hands. "This is the truth! These things are real and nobody ever wants to believe it. That's why I never told anyone else, and – and-"

She stepped back, shaking her head. "You lie to me. You charm yourself into my house, my _bed_, and then you lie to me some more." She breathed in steadily, gathering herself. "I think you should go."

"Babe-"

"I wish I could say it was me and not you. But I can't and you know that." Cassie said. "Don't make this harder on the both of us then it already is."

And she walked away back to the house, leaving Dean standing out in the snow, shocked and angry and maybe a little hurt.

_I've just been dumped. And it feels… Actually, it feels pretty bad._

And from that Christmas onwards, Dean learnt to take what he could where he could, work, rest and play. Nothing could be trusted and nothing lasted forever.

Except that he was always going to end up in a place like this. That was a given.

Ellen sent them to work.

A day ticked by, another day closer to the Christmas countdown. Sam proved to be totally inept behind the bar, so Dean put him on wiping duty while he took over. He got into the swing of things pretty easily, probably because his first and only real job was as a barman at a place called Mick's when he was about fifteen.

Most of the time he was serving with Jo, and he didn't know how to take that at first. Part of him still thought of her as the little girl with a questionable taste in music and a crush on him, but there were shadows in her eyes and marks on her hands that bespoke the fact that she had indeed been around the block a couple of times.

Mid-morning, the door opened and suddenly the room was filled with the smell of tree. Dean's eyebrows rose in surprise as he spotted the front end of a pine entering the door.

"Where d'you want the tree, Ell?" A bearded man peered through the pine needles and grinned at Ellen.

"Where the heck did you find that, Mac?" Ellen tried for indignant but only got amused.

"I have a friend." He said mysteriously. "Ta be honest, my nephew got me a tree, but with all me junk, I got no room. So I said to myself, who would benefit from a beautiful pine on Christmas? And you, lovely lady, were the first to come to mind."

"That's nice. You looked at a tree and thought of me." Ellen said. "I'm surprised you didn't just stand on the corner and hawk it. Especially at this time of the year." Sam caught Dean's eye and grinned. "Go prop it up over there."

And so the bar now had a tree, and each time a new tough hunter walked through the door, he would spend a moment looking up at it, completely astonished. After much badgering from Ellen, Sam had reached up and placed a crappy tinfoil angel on the highest bough, and Jo gave it a quick spray with that canned fake snow.

More often then not, Dean would catch these hard case hunters casting discreet looks at the tree, mixtures of emotions playing across their leather-like faces. Longing, sadness, loneliness, resentment, amusement, cheerfulness…

Christmas had come to the Roadhouse.

"You have weird friends."

Jo just looked at him. "Gee whiz, what tipped you off?"

"Dean, what did you do to her?" Sam watched her slip neatly past them.

"_Me?_ Why's it always me that's done something wrong?" He pursed his lips. "Something's up, Scully. I smell something off."

"Yeah, that'd be Alvin." Sam pointed to some dude up the back smoking a cigar that looked an awful lot like a stick of TNT.

Dean punched his arm. "I'm serious." He scowled. "How come when I _am _being serious no one believes me? No one understands me." He complained.

"Oh, I think they do. Probably too well, and that's the problem." Sam folded his arms and adopted an amused stance. "Look, man, maybe this time there's no conspiracy. Maybe we just busted up her holiday and she's being all angsty about it. You're not going to follow her around all Christmas waiting for her to do something out of the usual just so you'll be proven right."

Dean didn't reply. Sam read his expression at once and his jaw dropped.

"Dude! She'll think you're some kind of psycho stalker!"

"Okay, okay." He snapped. "But something weird is going down. And even if you don't believe me, I'm going to find out what it is."

* * *

Dean would never admit it in a crowded room, but he was actually pretty good at stalking. Well, he hadn't been caught yet, and that was something. 

He pulled his knife out of the dresser draw and tucked it into his boot. The sleeping Sam didn't notice a thing. He probably could have banged around the room, turned on the light and knocked things over knowing how deep his brother had been known to sleep.

He waited in the shadows of the Christmas tree, and an hour later, his efforts bore fruit when a fair-haired figure in black came silently down the stairs and propped a note on the counter. Pulling her blonde hair back from her face, she slipped outside.

Rising, Dean followed. He cast a look at Jo's note. _Be back later. Love, Jo._ That was it. Kept carefully blank to avoid her mother picking her whereabouts from any stray information she may have accidentally committed to paper.

_She's starting to get good._

Outside, the whether wasn't fooling around. It was _freezing_, and the wind cut right through you, no matter how many layers you were wearing. _I wonder why she hasn't noticed me yet? _Dean followed Jo at a distance as she crunched through the snow, until she seemingly disappeared into the residential district.

_What-? Great. Just great._ He began to walk around the school on the block.

_Wham!_

Stars temporarily danced before his eyes and his vision went blurry.

"You want a little bit of this, asshole?" A female hissed. She rocketed into him, pinning him tight against the school wall. He could feel the cold bite of steel against his throat, and instead of making him fear for his life, it woke him up and made him feel alive.

His hand snaked up and gripped her wrist. It was thinner and frailer than he expected, and he knew that he could have snapped it easily. "Not bad." He said, and propelled her backwards out into the dim light cast by the streetlamps.

"Dean?" There was a note of horror in Jo's voice as she finally recognised her stalker. "Are you _insane_? I could have slit your throat!"

He grinned at her, a flash of white teeth in the darkness. "No, you couldn't." He sounded more confident than he felt. She was starting to get _good._ Better than he had expected.

"I knew there was something up. You're working a job." He accused. "You know, I could go for my phone right now and tell Mommy exactly where you are."

"No, you wont." Jo replied flatly.

"You shouldn't be out here."

"Who do you think you are? My keeper?" There was a snide edge to her voice. She sheathed her knife and turned away.

Dean spread his arms wide. "Listen, lady, standing out here freezing my ass off isn't exactly my idea of a good time." He protested at her back. "I was only going to-"

"I can look after myself, thank you very much." She said primly.

"You couldn't last time I checked." He reached out to grab her arm.

"Don't you ever get tired of acting the big brother? Go away." She snatched her hand back.

"I'm not going away until you tell me what the hell is up with you."

"And if I don't?" She challenged.

"Well, I take a leaf out of your book and just follow anyway." He retorted.


	4. The Twelve Days of Christmas

"So you're chasing some dude in a Santa suit?" There was scorn in his voice, and quite frankly Jo couldn't blame him. Evil Santas? Shall we say clichéd? Overdone? Insane? Please. It was like the plot out of some supernatural thriller on television.

He was looking at her out of the corner of his eye as if he was waiting for her to pull a funny face and yell 'April Fools!'

Yes, Jo had officially hit rock bottom.

"Sort of." Jo said as the two of them walked side by side down the street. She couldn't help remembering that once she would have given a lot just to get him alone. "It's called a Kallikantzaros."

"A what?"

"Callie-Cant-Zaroy." She said. His mouth moved silently as he tested the word. "It's Greek. It's also collective for trolls and dwarfs and such in Western culture. Some cultures say that it's part animal. Some say it looks like us, only really… short."

"Really?" He asked innocently. "Never would have guessed."

Jo let the sarcasm pass over her head. "They supposedly live underground for most of the year, but there are – some – days that they come out and wreak havoc just for the fun of it. You know, eating the Christmas pudding and things like that."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Let me guess." He said, eyes sparkling with laughter. "They come out to play on the twelve days of Christmas." At Jo's solemn expression his smirk faded.

"You're not serious. Damn, you are serious. Honest to God Christmas demons? For real?" His dumbfounded face was almost comical. "Why hasn't anyone else been out here to take this sucker down, then?"

"Please." Jo rolled her eyes. "Some dude that shows up dressed like Santa Claus to scare the crap out of a few of the high rollers? Yeah, I can just see the boys lining up to take a shot. I mean, you thought I'd gone off the deep end too."

Dean kicked at a clump of snow near his foot. "It's just… Christmas demons? Christmas is supposed to be presents and eggnog and long-lost family members you've never met before turning up on your doorstep. The one day of the year it's a-okay to get drunk in the morning and eat candy until you puke. Demons? Christmas demons? Shatters the illusion somewhat."

"You're telling me. You should have heard what my dad said about the Easter Bunny." She frowned at the memory.

Dean glanced at her sideways. "Your dad sounds kinda like my dad."

"Your dad was a bad influence." And she found that the more she spoke about him, the less painful his memory became.

"You never even met him!"

"Maybe, but he produced you."

Dean gave a quick grin. He cleared his throat. "And at this point dear old Sammy would remind me to keep my mind on the job."

"It's _my _job and I never said _you _could come."

"Oh, my feelings are hurt now. Are you telling me you can put up with my sucky brother but you don't want to spend any time with little old me?" His expression turned serious. "Really. I should go with. Give some backup."

"I wont need it."

"So says you. I _could _go back to your mom's now, and _could _pretend like nothing ever happened, but the problem is that I'm such an honest soul. I don't think I could lie to anyone."

"Are you blackmailing me?" She blinked at him.

"Hey. One good turn deserves another." He replied.

"That was a long time ago." Jo said sternly. "I hardly even remember it."

"Pity. I do. I also remember how you charged in to tackle a homicidal ghost without the smallest shred of a plan. Even after I said no."

"Philadelphia was my job! If you hadn't have showed up, I would have been fine." She stopped walking. "Get off my case, Winchester. Like you're perfect, I think not."

"Did I distract you?" Dean asked half-seriously.

"Right. You think you're mighty fine, don't you? Well, let me tell you-" She trailed off.

"Tell me what?" Jo made a shushing motion and pointed over his shoulder.

There was a Santa walking toward them. A really, really, really… short Santa.

"He's a midget."

"Could you possibly get _more_ politically incorrect?" She hissed, grasping his sleeve and pulling him under the school's hedge.

It must have heard the noise, because it turned. As its eyes caught the moonlight, they glinted a pearly white.

"Holy crap," Dean breathed. "Real. They're real?"

Jo nodded, though he couldn't really see her in the dark.

"Alright, how do we kill these suckers?" Suddenly he was all business once more.

"Kill?" Jo's eyebrows rose. "Is that the first thing that comes into your head when you see something you've never seen before."

"Generally, yes." He said dryly. "I assume you've done your homework on the thing, so could we just get it over and done with?"

She stared at his dark profile, shocked. "Don't you want to find out why it's here? Why it's doing what it is?"

"Fantastic. Another bleeding-heart, 'save-the-werewolves', champion for good." He hissed through gritted teeth. _It's hard enough dealing with Sam…_

"What's your deficiency, Dean?" She retorted. "I was gonna go check it out, is all. As far as I can tell it hasn't hurt anyone, only scared the crap out of a few people that deserved to be scared the crap out of."

"It's still a demon."

"Maybe. We can debate the point all night long, but I've got work to do." She stood, glaring at him. Was this what he and his brother felt like when she had pushed her way onto that hunt all those years ago? Like they could have strangled her for presuming that she would be able to help?

"I hate karma." She said.

Dean turned to her. "Are you coming?"

Jack Frost had visited that night. The snowmen were colder, the lawns icier and icicles were hanging from trees. "Jeez, is it like this every year?" Dean asked.

"Don't know." Jo said. "Last year I was in Florida."

"What the hell were you doing in Florida?"

"Exactly none of your business."

"Uh huh. With a guy?"

"Two, actually."

"Jo Harvelle!"

"Whoa, back up there, tiger." The side of her mouth twitched in a grin. "James and Thomas are my cousins."

Dean ran a hand uncomfortably across the back of his neck. "Oh."

"They like to check up. You know, see if we're looking after ourselves and stuff."

"Must be nice. Having someone to look out for you." He mused. Catching Jo's expression, he changed the subject. "So. Are they too inflicted with the crazy gene?"

"You mean the one that makes you want to go out and stick things with sharp objects? If they are, they haven't told me." She sighed. "I hope not. Thomas has just got married and James and his wife are going to have a baby." She shook her head. "I don't even know why I'm telling you _any _of this."

Dean was silent. Then he pointed. "The critter must have gone that way."

They must have stayed out longer that they had both realised, for it began to get lighter as they followed the small footsteps. It was a good thing it hadn't snowed that hard or all trace would be lost.

Santa strolled down the sidewalk as if he owned the place, seemingly unaware that he (she, it) was being tailed. But as soon as they hit the business district, it was gone.

"What the hell-?" There was frustration in Dean's voice. Jo surmised that this was one guy where his prey _never_ outwitted him. Especially prey in a Santa suit.

"There it is!" She grabbed his hand. "Going into that house!"

Parents were already rising to do whatever last minute shopping they could cram in, children bawling at their knees. Jo and Dean once again wriggled into a bush to watch Santa go into No. 32. Jo poked Dean's shoulder before slinking up to below the window.

Dean shook his head and followed.

_She's gonna get herself pulverised one day._

Someone was humming. Jo looked up through the thin curtains. As she watched, Santa stripped off his big, red coat. He hung up his big, red hat and pulled off his bushy, white beard. Underneath was a nightie and long brown hair.

"It's a girl." Jo whispered in horror.

The Kallikantzaros peered around itself with those milky white eyes before climbing back into bed. It pulled the covers up to its chin and closed its eyes.

And that was when the door opened. Jo and Dean both flinched away.

"Rise and shine, sweetie." A woman sang out."It's Christmas Eve and I want you to help me with the pudding."

"Sure." The little girl rose. Her eyes were now a big blue, wide and innocent. "Then can I go and pick out my birthday present?"

"Only if you do what you're told."

"Yes, Mommy."

"Damn, it's a freaking _kid_?" Dean hissed. He grasped the back of Jo's jacket, pulling her away.

"You glad now we didn't just waltz in and pop a cap in her ass?"

"It's got to be a changeling of some sort." He said matter-of-factly. "Something's taken the real girl and put in this, whatdyoucallit, Kallikantzaros."

Jo screwed up her face. "Nothing's ever just straightforward, is it?."

"Honey, if it was, we'd be out of jobs."

They stuck to the hedge line, before emerging in the shadows of the temporarily deserted school.

"What now?"

"You're asking me?"

"Well, it's _your _case."

For a moment Jo really looked like she could have hit him.

* * *

They were in time for the lunch rush when they go back to the Bar.

Dean had never really _worked_ with a girl during a hunt, with the having to view her as an equal and being ubruptly reminded when he was starting to get too arrogant and sarcastic, but he found, surprisingly, that he was actually enjoying himself. What with the snow and the Christmas trees and the smell of turkey wafting enticingly out of various homes, he could have been having an alright time.

If not for the fact that there was a little girl in the firing line if they didn't solve this case before New Year's.

Sam was washing up in the kitchen, and Ellen was working the bar. She had peered at them acuusingly as Jo waved Dean over to show him something on her computer. Her look clearly said _hurt her and I'll hurt you._ Dean's brother had smirked when the two of them had trudged in, cold and wet and shivering, their clothes smeared with mud, but wisely chose not to say anything.

Dean wiped his hands on the towel he'd tucked into a back pocket. "Maybe we should tell someone what we're doing,"

"And have Mom run me through the 'just say no' lecture again? I don't think so."

"Sam keeps looking at me like I've done something sleazy and insidious, and I really don't like the way your mother is waving around that cleaver, with such… precision."

"You're afraid of my mother?" There was a note of amusement in her voice.

"Very possibly." He said seriously. He pulled out a stool and sank down onto it gratefully. "Your mom runs a tight ship."

"Ah, _duh_?" She showed him the page she was on, changing the subject from family. "I only ever did basic research on the things, so I didn't have all the facts straight at once. But, in some places, Kallikantzaros are actually…"

"Kids?"

"Yeah. Kids that are born on the 25th December have a strong chance of becoming one."

"I thought we agreed it was a changeling."

"_You_ agreed it was a changeling." She shot back. "_I _said I needed to investigate more."

Dean crossed his arms. "All right, smarty, how do we change 'em back, then?"

"Well, tradition said that they can be bound in hay and by the twelth hour of the twelth day they will become normal again."

"Great. Do you happen to have some hay down the back? Oh, and how do we bind the girl in hay? Let's go nab ourselves a kid!"

"The sarcasm accomplishes nothing." Jo said through gritted teeth.

"It's an end in itself."

"There is another way…"

"Mmm?"

"You're not going to believe it."

"Just tell me."

"Garlic."

"Oh, bloody hell."


	5. Happy Holiday

That evening Ellen happened to be walking past her daughter's slightly ajar bedroom door. She also happened to drop her handkerchief just beyond the threshold and happened to peer into Jo's room as she bent to retrieve it.

"-stop it."

"-such an idiot, Dean-"

"-never work-"

Any other time Ellen would have indignantly marched into the room and thrown the boy out _just because_, but she was beginning to realise that the more she treated her daughter like a child, the more distant Jo would become. After all, that was what started the girl in hunting.

And so, completely against her better judgement, Ellen turned and walked away.

* * *

"I'm serious, Jo. We've got to do something to stop it." Dean said. 

"Sure. Lets just mosey right up to the door and tell Mommy that some sort of supernatural entity is living in her daughter and we have to exorcise her before New Year's when the kid gets pulled underground. Don't be such an idiot, Dean."

He frowned. "This is why I never work with women."

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, we've got to get in there and do something. If that's a real kid in there and the Kalliwhatsit is smothering her. Have you got the specs up yet?"

Jo clicked up another page on her computer. "The house is owned by Anthony and Alexandra Morgan. Very average. Three bedrooms. Garden."

He sat down on her bed. From the dresser, a photo of a dark haired man in jeans and a long jacket glared at him. Bill Harvelle had the same dark glower John Winchester once had. "You may have already answered this, but why was the house on the local police database anyway?"

"That's the good bit." She gave a vampire smile that Dean thought was quite unnerving.

"Good?" He asked weakly.

"Well, maybe not. Seven years ago, the Summers' family lived there. Mom, Dad, three brothers and five sisters."

"Who the hell would _want _eight kids?"

"A week after her birthday, the youngest sister snapped for some reason. Turned on her family. They had all been dead for weeks by the time anyone bothered to look for them."

"Nice."

"Since she was underage, she was sent to a juvenile correctional facility. The kid died there. No cause was ever found. It was like she just decided to stop living."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "How did the family die?"

Jo shrugged. "No one found out for certain. No outward trauma, not even the autopsy found anything. It was like they'd died of fright"

"I don't suppose… it was her twenty-second birthday?"

Jo lent back in her chair. "Give the boy a prize. Care to guess _when_ this psychotic little demonic psychic massacred her family?"

"I don't do guessing games." Dean said with a sinking feeling in his gut.

"Happy Yuletide, Dean."

"Great. Fantastic. So you're saying that we could be dealing with angry spirit that manifests itself around Christmas instead of a Kallidohickey?"

"An angry spirit of a _psycho killer_ that manifests itself around Christmas." She said helpfully. "Every family that's lived in that house bar the Morgans have lost one member to some sort of freak accident. All I can say is, you really dodged a bullet with Sam."

Dean lent forward and put his head in his hands. "I dunno. I'm sort of waiting for one of us to go completely wacky sooner or later, and, honestly, I think it might be me."

There was no sympathy in her eyes as Jo reached out and punched his shoulder. "Feeling sorry for yourself is not going to help anyone." She said sternly. "We'll go out, follow the kid, find out what it is, and get rid of it without hurting the girl."

"Ow. That actually hurt." He backed away from her a little. "What's the name of the Morgan girl, then?"

"Mary." Jo said. "Her name's Mary."

"Hell. Let's do this thing." 

Jo grinned and nodded. "Don't forget the garlic. Just in case."

It was worth it just to see the look on his face.

* * *

They were sitting on a bench outside the school. Just another couple enjoying the last rays of light before turning in to do a little Christmas celebrating of their own. A group of teenage girls stopped to eye off Dean, and Jo reached out to grasp his knee. _Back off, kiddies._

"Could you please stop touching me?" He asked around his fixed smile.

"Have to make it look real." She retorted. "Don't flatter yourself. It isn't exactly doing anything for me, either. We're working a job. No distractions."

"Mmmhmm." His head swivelled to watch as a dark haired woman in tight pants walked past. "No distractions. Right."

Jo poked him in the ribs.

"Ow!"

"Job. Isolate. Kill."

"Yes, ma'am." He sounded hurt.

An hour ticked by. Jo was starting to get nervous. She wasn't worried about a ghost, or a demon, or even Dean.

She was worried that she was going to screw up.

Ever since that first eventful hunt with Sam and Dean, she had noticed a tendency for the jobs to get worse before they got better. She hoped that this wasn't going to be one of those times.

"We should have brought Sam." She said suddenly.

"Now you tell me?"

"I'm just thinkin'. His whole psychic thing could come in handy."

"You know he's not really psychic anymore, right?"

"Bullshit." She scoffed. "What about the dream about that girl last time I saw you?"

"Coincidence." He shrugged.

"And all the dreams and visions he had while you were – elsewhere?"

"He – what?" He stared at her, genuinely shocked. Jo bit her lip. _Oops. I've blown your cover, Sam._

"Oh my God, you really don't know." She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice but didn't quite succeed. _I thought they told each other everything. _

"Know what?" Jo shrunk away slightly as Dean sat up rigidly, his hands balling into fists in the folds of his jacket.

"It's nothing. I'm sure he just didn't want to worry you. I bet he had a really good reason-" _Okay, babbling now. Stop talking._

"He lied to me." Dean's face was angry and he pulled in a steadying breath.

"He didn't lie. He just didn't… tell all the truth."

"He lied to me." He repeated, as if he had never heard her. Jo sensed that his brother choosing to leave him out of the great secret was a betrayal that cut deeper than any knife.

He stood.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"For a walk." He replied woodenly.

"Dean-"

"Leave me alone."

"Fine." Jo said, angry at how immature he was acting. "Just wander off and feel sorry for yourself. Sooner or later," She shouted at his retreating back. "You're going to realise that the whole world _isn't _against you."

* * *

Mary Morgan was going on a sleepover with her friends from school. She was excited, though Mommy didn't like it. Mommy had told Dad that the family should be together on Christmas Eve, but Dad said that Mary shouldn't have to always do what Mommy told her. 

Mommy got really mad at that, and screamed at Dad not to tell her how to raise her daughter. Dad had got angry and said that she was his daughter too. Mary was really happy to get away. She didn't like it when they shouted at each other. Half the time she was convinced that arguing was the only thing they liked to do together anymore.

She had two friends that had divorced parents, and they had both got really upset when it happened, saying it was the worst thing that ever happened to them. But secretly, deep down, Mary was hoping that they would divorce just to stop them yelling. Why keep doing something that made you sad?

"Bye, Mommy!" She shouted, as she ran out to Dad's car, clutching her pillow. This would be the best sleepover ever! She stopped at the curb as Dad put her things into the car. She peered out across the snow.

A woman was sitting in the bus shelter across the street. Mary looked at her. She had long dark hair and green eyes. She saw Mary looking and smiled at her.

"Dad." Mary reached out to pull at his sleeve. "Look over there!"

"Over where, sweetheart?"

"Over there! It's the girl from my dream."

Anthony looked up to where she was pointing. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I can't see anything with all this snow."

"But she's right _there_." She was still sitting there, smiling. Mary couldn't understand why Dad couldn't see her. "But-"

"Come on, you don't want to be late." Dad said, bundling her into the car.

"No, Dad."

It was pretty average. Her and her two friends Jodie and Karen stayed up late, ate some candy, watched some bad TV, and talked about boys. Finally, it was time to go to bed.

Mary lay straight in her sleeping bag. She'd known the truth about Santa since she was about three, but didn't say anything to the adults for fear of disrupting the flow of presents. But even if she wanted to, she couldn't quite drift off to sleep.

She felt… restless. Yeah, that was the word. So she rolled out of the sleeping bag and went over to the window.

The snow was so pretty. She wished that the real Christmas was like the Christmas in the movies. Fun. Everybody happy. She perched carefully on the window ledge, her nose pressed against the cold glass. Her breath fogged the windows and for a moment she amused herself by drawing a big dog. Then she drew a stick man figure of her principle being chased by the dog.

_Okay, bored now._

Then she saw her again. The woman in her sweater and jeans, standing on the corner. Just waiting.

She was so pretty, with her black silky hair and big eyes. Mary's boredom was gone in an instant.

"It's you." She whispered, breath fogging the glass pane. The woman smiled. She was so pretty. She raised a hand. Curled a finger. Mary could almost hear it. _Come and play._

She sank down from the window. Jodie and Karen were still asleep, and she stepped over them to reach the door.

It was cold outside. She should have put on something over her nightie. But she soon forgot the whether when she saw her friend. The friend whose name she didn't even know.

"You're so pretty." Mary said.

The woman smiled, but was silent.

"Mommy says you're not real. Are you real?"

She just cocked her head to the side. Although there was no wind, strands of her hair was being lifted in an unseen storm.

"I don't like it here." Mary said. "Everyone's always fighting. I see all these bad things happen really far away, but when I tell anyone, they don't believe me. Mrs Cunningham thinks I'm an attention seeker." She scowled; remembering the way everyone had pointed and laughed at her when she had first found out she was different. She hated it.

Her friend nodded, understanding.

"But I can talk to you." The girl said. "Mommy thinks I need to see a doctor because she can't see you. I don't like it here anymore. Can I go with you?" She pleaded. "Oh, please. I'll be good."


	6. Please Come Home

"-I mean, what's the _point _of me trying to keep his scrawny ass out of trouble when he wont even tell me what's really going on inside that pea-brained skull of his?"

Yes, even Saint Dean wasn't immune to the odd bitch. Sam had been Dean's responsibility since he was _four_, for crying out loud! He'd _sold his soul_ for the mongrel. They had gone through demons, wars, death, but the secrets they kept still stood glaringly between them.

And Dean added something else to the long list of the things he hated. "Christmas sucks."

He liked the cold, the bite in the air. It made him feel numb. But then again, he'd gone through most of his life feeling numb. It was a way to switch off pain, switch off feeling. Just pretend it was happening to someone else. Always. Back away slowly from anything that was a danger of making you feel normal.

Passing the liquor store, he had a fleeting thought that perhaps he should stop by and pick up a little something, but he really didn't need Jo on his case all night. _We're working a job. No distractions. _Self-important little- _Though it is kinda nice to have someone looking out for _me_, for a change…_

He shook his head to dispel the thought. _Hold up there, Dean. Don't _even _go there. She's like… a sister. Annoying, obnoxious, holier-than-thou. Huh. She _is_ just like a sister._

He wandered around the corner. He glanced at a gorgeous woman waiting in front of the pharmacy and walked straight past her.

It took a moment before his eyes and instincts caught screaming up with his head. _Babe alert! What are you, blind as well as stupid? Go say hello!_ Dean glanced over his shoulder. His eyes seemed funny. Blurry. He looked toward her, but almost as soon as he did, his eyes slid off her.

Dean blinked, and raised a hand to rub at his eyes. His eyes were telling him that the woman was right there in front of him, but his mind almost didn't seem to care. _Just forget about it. Go grab a brew, track down a sexy miss to celebrate Christmas Eve with. Forget about the job for a while._

_You know, that might not be such a bad idea._

He watched, unconcerned, as a small girl walked up to the woman. "I don't want to be here anymore." She said. "Can I go with you?"

And although part of Dean was going _Danger, Will Robinson, danger, _he was still completely calm. _Nothing out of the usual here. Be on your way. _The woman smiled a pretty little smile, and offered her hand to the kid. The girl reached out to take it…

_Dean, look alive!_ It was like his father had shouted it in his ear, like he had done so many times before. It was like someone had punched him in the stomach. He felt sick.

"Get away from her!" He finally shouted.

Mary spun around to glare at the stranger. He was tall, with a crooked nose and angry eyes. But those eyes weren't on her. They were on her friend.

"Back off, bitch." He spat, his hand unconsciously groping for something in his belt that wasn't there.

"Don't call her that." Mary piped. "You - meanie. Go away."

The woman frowned, but still didn't speak.

"Trust me, kid. She's not your friend." He said firmly, reaching for her. "Come on, sweetie. Let's go home."

"Yeah. Right." The kid scoffed. "How stupid do you think I am?"

_Why don't kids ever do what they're told?_

Mary danced out of his reach. _How come all adults think we're stupid? _"Go away before I start making a scene."

The man lunged again, knocking her hand down. "Get oooff!" Mary yelped. "Help! Help!"

"Don't you know when someone _is _trying to help you?" He hissed, slapping a palm over her mouth and lifting her clear off her feet. Suspended in the air, Mary did the only thing she could. She bit down hard on his hand.

"Ow! You little-"

She aimed a kick at his shin. "Pervert!" She shrieked, her voice carrying right down the street. "You're gonna be sorry, mister."

_I think I'm sorry already. _His shin stung and his hand hurt. _Never work with children. _

"Dean! What the hell are you doing?!"

The woman's shout rent the air and the moment of confusion was all Mary needed. She lunged for the offered hand.

"Stop!" The blonde girl cried.

"No!" The man shouted. He reached out to try and stop their hands touching.

That was when the dark-haired woman extended her arm. Her hand passed smoothly through the air and settled on his cheek.

Everything was completely still for a moment, frozen in time. Then his eyelids began to flutter and his legs folded up underneath him. He sank limply to the ground.

"DEAN!"

Mary gasped at the horror and anguish in her voice. With a start, the illusion was stripped away and she knew what she was doing was wrong. But it was too late. For the man that had tried to save her. And for her.

She had already grasped the pale, clammy, bony hand.

* * *

_Much later:_

His head was killing him. Hands over his eyes, he rose to his knees.

_Feels like a hangover without the gritty aftertaste._ "Oh, man." He rubbed at his eyes. There was a nasty bump on his forehead that would probably become quite a nice bruise later on.

"Christ." Dean muttered. "Jo! Where the hell are you, woman?"

Nothing.

Jo wouldn't just leave me out here alone, would she? God, what if something's happened to her? Ellen'll kill me. And what about that dumb kid, Mary? Has something got her too?

Then he looked around himself closer. There was only the snow fluttering steadily down from the heavens and the street decorations swinging softly in the breeze. Lights were still twinkling, and stores were still open.

_What's wrong with this picture? _

There were no people. The town was completely deserted.

"Oh no."

Dean rubbed his hand against the fogged widow of the DVD store. There were bags abandoned in the aisles and even a half-eaten hamburger on the counter.

"Great." He said aloud. "I'm stuck in an episode of the _Twilight Zone._" But as he looked up, he noticed that all the clocks were still ticking over. All except his own watch, which was stuck at 8.45. He shook his wrist, but it didn't make a lick of difference.

"_Why_ is it always _me_?" He demanded.

"Alex? Tony?" It was a female voice, thin and reedy. Dean spun, bending at the knees. It wouldn't have been the first time a woman had been sent to distract him. But his fighting stance vanished as soon as Mary Morgan stepped onto the street.

There was a moment where the two of them just stared at each other, before Mary began to back away slowly.

"Wait." Dean raised his hands to show her that he wasn't going to get her. _Be fair, what would you do if you were her?_ "I'm not… going to hurt you."

Her eyes were hard. Dean admired the fact that she stood her ground, despite being _way_ out of her depth, and she knew it. "_You_." There was vehemence in her voice, but he didn't know quite what to make of it.

"Sorta. My name's Dean." He offered, his hands still raised. He gave a cocky half-grin, trying to show her that he could be trusted. _Easier said than done. _

She looked at him a moment longer before deciding to speak. "Mary." She said. "I'm Mary."

"Nice to meet you, Mary."

The silence seemed to threaten to engulf them both. _We're the only two people left in freako bizzaro land. What else is there to talk about?_

As if she had read his mind, Mary spoke. "Well, this is freakin' bizarre." She said. "What now?"

It took Dean a moment to realise that she was talking to him. He lowered is hands. "Um…" All kids, it appeared, looked to the nearest adult for guidance in a crisis. Unfortunately for Dean, he was the nearest adult. She was looking up at him, waiting expectantly.

"You don't _know_, do you?" She asked witheringly. The second time he had been asked the same question that day, in very different tones. "Great. I get zapped to some creepo dimension and the only other person here is an idiot."

"Hey!" Dean's eyebrows rose. He was at once annoyed and amused. "I'm not an idiot!"

"You're here, aren't you?" Mary said scornfully.

"So are you." Dean shot back, forgetting for a moment that she was maybe ten. She seemed much more mature. But then again, by ten he could use a shotgun that was taller than he was. "_I _wasn't the little dork that wanted to wander off with a ghost."

"And I suppose I was supposed to go with 'let's-go-home-sweetie' shady trench coat guy?" She said. Then she stopped. Dean could almost see the cogs whirring in her mind as she processed the entirety of what he just said.

Mary, to her credit, didn't go 'there's no such things as ghosts', or 'you're insane', or 'you should be locked up'. Instead she turned away from him and calmly flicked out her long brown hair before pinching her arm savagely.

Any other time, Dean would have been highly amused. Not now. "You're awake." He said coldly. "Now if you've finished having your moment, I've got to find out what the hell is going on here."

"You think this is me having a moment? I'll show you what I'm like when _I'm having a moment_!" Her voice echoed between the vacant buildings.

Dean raised his hand in a shushing motion. "Now, calm down." He said awkwardly.

"_Calm down_?! What kind of psycho are you? I'm ten and I've just become a member of the Choir Invisible!"

"We're not dead." Dean said firmly.

"You sure?"

"A hundred percent. Well, ninety-nine. Ninety eight?" Mary just looked at him, clearly not impressed with his comic timing. He frowned. "Okay, to be brutally honest, I haven't got the faintest idea of where we are."

"What a surprise." She said with the faintest tilt of her eyebrow. "It's obvious where we are. Where we're _not _is the question."

He hadn't thought of that. "Excuse me?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Duh. We're still where we should be, right? Just… for some reason… we've been phased out. Like in some sort of crappy sci-fi show."

_Sam would love to sit down and talk to this kid._ It really did sound like something from a crappy sci-fi show. _Wait. Has everyone else been turned invisible or is it just us? _"And it all seems tied to that freaky Six-Month girl." He finished.

"Say what?" The kid frowned. "Is that some kind of disease? _Six-Month-itis_."

"I've never thought of that way before." Dean said. "Yeah. I guess it is, in a way."

"Still waiting for an explanation." Mary folded her arms. "Feel free to submit your delusions to the realm of insanity at any time." In a way, the kid kinda reminded him of himself. Covering up how unsure and unconfident and out of place he felt with bluffs and sarcasm and scorn. "While you were out, I went home. Mom and Dad weren't there."

"You were calling for a Tony and Alex."

This time Mary looked uncomfortable. "Um, they're my foster parents."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Oh."

"I don't know what happened to my real parents." She said. "Mom doesn't like to even talk about them anymore. Whatever it was, it must have been real bad."

Dean remembered his mother then. After she had died, Dad stopped talking about her. It was almost like she never had existed, and Sam hadn't known what had _really _happened until his mid-teens, while in a moment of rebellion he read through Dad's journal. Imagine, finding out through a book what happened to your mom. It was like getting dumped by text. Or finding out about your expulsion through a letter dated three months before.

Um, not that he knew personally, of course.

He offered Mary his hand. "Come on."

She just looked at him curiously.

"Where to?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."


	7. In Bleak Midwinter

"I'm a kid. You can't bring kids into a bar."

"Buck up, squirt. Somehow I don't think anyone will mind."

Mary narrowed her eyes. "You're the weirdest adult I've ever met."

_Shorty, you ain't seen nothin' yet. _Smiling grimly, Dean poked his head around the open door. "Sammy? Jo? Ellen? You here?" The bar was seemingly deserted, glasses of beer left abandoned on the pool table, and weapons discarded on chairs.

"Damn." Dean walked forward to peer behind the bar before turning around to kick angrily at the toilet stalls. Even to have some crotchety old man threaten to belt his head in would have been welcome at this point.

"There's no one here." She said it so exasperatedly and tiredly. It was like all the fight had suddenly gone out of her as she accepted the grim reality that was her fate. And it infuriated him even more.

"No one's giving up." Dean said sternly. "We're not dead, we're just… not."

Mary rolled her eyes. "And ever so loquacious."

"Loquacious? How the heck does a kid like you even know what loquacious means?"

"Haven't you ever watched _Are You Smarter than A 5th Grader_?" She retorted.

Dean ignored her. _I hate kids._

_Yep, I would have made a crap parent._

He drummed is fingers on the bar. Major _déjà vu going on. Reminds me of the time I was wandering around that hospital semi-dead… I actually thought it was all a dream at the time… when Dad sold his soul for me. _

He straightened, and his fingers stopped tapping. Maybe the kid was right. Maybe the people weren't gone. Maybe he and Mary just couldn't see them.

Maybe Sam and Jo and Mary's foster parents were out there looking for them right now. Maybe…

"They can't see us." He said brightly.

"Gee." The scorn was evident in that one word.

"Knock it off, small fry." Dean said sternly. "At least I'm trying, not wandering about and moaning about how hard life is."

Mary visibly bristled and her frown deepened, but she didn't have an angry reply this time. "Then why can't we see them?"

He opened his mouth to reply but was beaten to the punch line.

"You have to want it." The voice was low and soft and reminded Dean of someone, though he couldn't place who it was. He motioned Mary to get behind him. He felt her small hands softly grasp the leg of his jeans as she hid herself in his shadow.

"You have to want it." The person repeated, trailing off. "And as I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I shall not fear…"

And like a light being switched on, Dean knew who he was. That biblical verse had been quoted to him so many times as a child, that he had all but had it memorised. His eyes widened with shock. "Pastor Jim? Oh God."

There, in the shadows, was a stooped man sitting on a barstool in the corner. The one barstool that was never occupied. Even in the Roadhouse, there had always been that one stool in the corner empty.

_That's Jim's stool. _Ellen had said once, when Sam had asked her. _He always sat in the corner, even though he didn't drink. He was still one of the boys. He helped so many of us here out, it's the least we can do to remember him. _Jo had a bit of a laugh at the boys' expense by having Sam practically convinced that there was a cold spot there.

_I guess she wasn't lying._ He thought.

_Pastor Jim_? Mary mouthed. _What kind of wacko is this guy_?

He was paler than death, waxy-skinned and sunken-eyed as he sat hunched on the stool, fingering something that might have been a rosary. Dean swallowed as Mary stepped around him to peer closer at the ghost.

"A real live ghost." She said. _Okay, there was _so _much wrong with that sentence. _"Neat."

_Who the hell is this kid_? "Mary, get back." He instructed.

"Oh, but-"

"Now, thank you very much."

Muttering under her breath, the girl did exactly as she was told. Much to Dean's surprise. He exhaled slowly, and attempted to gather his thoughts.

"Pastor Jim?"

"-and God created the Heaven and the Earth, the creatures of the Surface and those of the Below-"

_I've never heard any of that before. That can't be in the bible. _

"Jim?"

"-and I looked down upon my dominion of blood and I thought it good."

_Yeah, definitely not our bible._

"Our Lord stood above all." The wraith stood, stopped and hollow-shouldered. Mary gazed up at it in morbid fascination.

"Real." She whispered. "These things are real."

"No kidding. And I'm thinking that we just might find out how real if we don't haul ass now." Dean whispered urgently. He had no idea why he was whispering; it seemed like the best course of action at the time.

"Why?" Mary whispered back. "I thought he was your friend."

"Not anymore." Taking firm hold of her hand, Dean began to back away to the door, one eye on the phantom at all times. _Oh, Jim. I'm sorry._

"And He said _you are not worthy to stand before us_." And Jim straightened his head, looking up into the flickering light from the bare bulb.

"God." Dean exclaimed.

"God." Pastor Jim said scornfully. Blood dripped off his chin and the gaping hole where his throat had been glared out at them accusingly. Behind him, Mary made a barfing noise, which she quickly muffled with her hand. "_God _has got nothing to do with it. He abandoned this world. Abandoned _us_."

"Jim, this isn't you."

"It is. Only now I understand." He said. "And you will too."

"Kid, get out now."

Mary jumped at the order, but spun around and did what she was told. She reached for the door handle. "Dean." She sqeaked.

Dean barely noticed that it was the first time she had called him by his name. "What?"

"I can't get the door open." She tugged and rattled on the handle, to show that she wasn't jerking him around. "What now? _What now_?"

"Alright, don't panic." The pastor stayed where he was, only inches from his stool. He was looking downcast again, almost as if he had forgotten that they were even there. If he had seen them in the first place. "Don't loose your head."

Mary spun, her nightie swirling around her ankles. As she peered wildly about herself, she bit off a scream.

"Oh no." Dean said.

Suddenly the room was full.

Some of the ghostly people were talking to each other, but many others were sitting quietly by themselves, ignoring all that was going on around them. Or perhaps they couldn't see anyone else.

"Dean…" Mary started.

"Shut up."

"What's shutting up going to do?" She demanded. "Like any of these guys would notice. That dude right there has half his head hanging off!" She sounded borderline hysterical.

"Could you stop _spazzing out_? I need to think." None of the creatures were paying any attention to the newcomers._ What the hell is going on here_? "Move over." He braced his shoulder against the door and pushed. It was like the damn thing had been locked.

"Gladly."

Suddenly the door gave way.

"About time!"

"That wasn't me."

So the two of them spilled out of the bar and sank down in the snow, processing what they both had just seen. _Ghosts. _Dean rubbed at his numb face. _I hate ghosts. _He wished Sam was here, spouting various crap that neither of them would probably ever use. Hell, he wished his dad was here, with his whole wham-bam-thankyou-ma'am attitude toward the gigs.

Harvelle's, it seemed, had taken its ghosts with it when the Roadhouse burned down all that time ago.

_Does that mean we repeat the same patterns when we're dead that we did when alive? What a drag. Personally I'd hate to go through the motions more than once._

But of course there was this one little nagging persistent voice in the back of his mind. The one that manifested itself as the little, nagging persistent ten year old girl.

"We're dead." Mary looked away. "We're dead and I… I killed us."

"You didn't know."

"I should have, Dean! I should have thought. Floaty, glowy, dead girl? I'm so _stupid_." Dean could have said something grating at that point, but decided that the kid was already being tough enough on herself for both of them. "I just didn't care."

"Some of those creepos could do that." He said. "It's not your fault. Some of them could suppress free will as easy as. That Summers bitch has done this."

"Who are they?" Mary asked finally. "Who are these six month children?"

"People." Dean said. "Like you or me. Only they can do things."

"What sort of things?"

Dean looked her straight in the eye. "Kill people. Without lifting a finger. I've seen them do it."

"Oh." She said in a small voice. He looked away from the kid before continuing.

"On their twenty second birthday their powers manifest. They can do all sorts."

"How do you know? Are you-?"

"Hell, no. My brother, he's one." He sighed. "Sam's the only one left. I'm supposed to look after him. Fat chance now."

"That you know of."

"What?"

"He's the only one left – that you know of. There's more to the world than America." She propped her chin on her knees. "What's with the six months?"

"Because that's how old they were when they were chosen." He replied. "My mom… she was called Mary too…"

Mary smiled faintly.

"She died when my brother was six months old. She…" He stopped, wondering whether it was the right thing to do to tell a little girl about his gruesome family history. _She already knows you're messed up. _

"What?"

"She burned up. On the ceiling of Sam's nursery." And it was out. But this time there was no bitter aftertaste or the irrational feeling of abandonment. Only grim acceptance. _She's dead. Let it go, man._

Mary, however, wasn't looking any less freaked. If anything, her eyes were widened in shock. "I'm sorry." Dean said. "I shouldn't have said any of that."

"My mom." Mary said, and her voice was soft and stunted. "My real mom. She died when I was a baby. They said my real dad couldn't handle it and skipped town. They said he didn't want to be around me."

"Who said?"

"My stepmother drinks, and then she says things. She said once that my real father didn't want me. She said that I killed her."

"Whoa, Mary-" _What do I do now? Hold on, killed who?_

"My mom," Mary said. Her voice was carefully emotionless. "Died in my bedroom. A housefire. I have the newspaper clippings."

"Mary-"

"Sometimes I see things. Really bad, awful things. Most of the time they happen really far away, but-" She stopped.

_Coincidence, _his mind screamed, but Dean had learnt the hard way that you can never believe in coincidences._ Does that make Mary-?_

"Does that make me a freak? Does that make me one of the six month children?"

"I never said that. Did your stepmom tell you about the fire?"

"No." She shook her head. "No."

"Kid-"

"I… I _remember _it."

For a couple of minutes, Dean just sat there, not sure of what he should do.

The revelation certainly explained a lot. Little harmless ten-year-old Mary. He had known her for all of an hour and had already told her some of his most prized secrets, the secrets that he carefully kept behind closed doors and under six feet of concrete.

She could soak up the information around her like a sponge, after only hearing it once, and could recite it back to you like reading a book. Most kids truly started developing memory at three, but if the girl was telling the truth, she was all of six months old when these things started happening to her.

_Ten is a long cry from twenty-two. Maybe it was just a freak fire with freak nightmares and a freak capacity to retain junk._

_Or maybe because her mind is developing quicker than other kids means that her abilities have been set on fast forward._

_Maybe being a super-genius _is _her ability._

Great. Now I'm starting to sound like my brother.

He sighed.

Of course the yellow-eyed demon, Azazel or whatever he was called would have a contingency plan in case his current favourite up and died or turned around and said _up yours_. A plan to get themselves another freaky psychic leader, like Sam.

They're making another Sam.

_Who?_ Old Yeller is a goner. You shot him yourself, right between his beady eyes.

_Take your pick. How many demons can you name in a minute?_

Damn.


	8. Christmas at Ground Zero

'_Well, there were other generations…' _Azazel had said it himself.

It was easy to pinpoint when and where Mary and others like her must have slipped through their fingers. With the demon dead, guards were lowered, and even those few hunters who had been culling the psychics were only looking for people fitting the general profile.

That profile was: twenty plus, generally sucky life, angry at the world. Oh, and the weird powers thing kinda like _Heroes, _and the erratic killing sprees, so… unlike… _Heroes._

But there was an upside. Unbelievable, no? And that upside was that Dean now knew why the Summers' girl had been so set on Mary. But if Mary really _was _a demon psychic, and the psycho bitch had come for her, then…

It'll go for Sam next.

_And what am I doing? I'm a bloody phantom!_

"Why are we still here?"

How am I supposed to jump in to save the day when I don't even know if I'm dead or not? Whoa, not dead, not dead.

"Hey, Mr Strong-and-Silent," Mary poked him, her freckled nose wrinkled in annoyance. "Why are we still here?"

_Harvelle's._

"Because." Dean said.

"Because… why?"

"Because I'm the oldest and I said so." She just _looked_ at him, and the look was so damn familiar it was eerie. _It's like dealing with kid-Sam all over again, _he thought in exasperation.

"The girl will come back here."

"How do you know?"

"Because I do."

Mary's expression didn't change.

"Tell me about her." She piped suddenly. "Tell me about this woman."

"Why?"

"We're not going to start that again. Humour the dead girl. Tell me something."

"Um… where do you want me to start?"

"I dunno. How about the beginning? That's usually as good a place as any."

Dean grinned slightly. "Alright, fine. You should know I'm not good at expositions, though. Never was."

"Dean-"

"Now, about seven years ago, her family lived in your house. The Summers' family. Eight kids and mom and dad. A whole family of over-achievers. The only way the youngest daughter could have topped them all was to get into the White House at twenty-five. I'm guessing that the pressure finally got to her and she snapped."

Mary looked down at her little blue slippers. "She killed them all."

"Yeah."

"How could you do something like that? How could you _ever _do something like that?"

_Maybe I've got to this kid quick enough. She doesn't have to go the same way all those others did._

But then again, Dean himself had a lot of romanticised ideals when he was ten.

"A week after she turned twenty two." He said. "She was admitted to a correctional facility, and died there. No cause was ever found."

"What about her family?"

"Nothing."

The pair was silent for a moment. "Since she died, each family to move into your house has lost a member to some freak accident. Drowning in the pool, falling out of the tree house, hit by a car backing out of the drive. They…"

"…were all kids." Mary finished.

"Yeah."

"And now I'm dead too."

"Mary-"

"Would you stop 'Mary'-ing me?" She demanded. "I'm not stupid. There's no way that we would even be able to see those… people in there if we weren't."

"A person can be a spirit without being dead." Dean said calmly. "I, for one, will _not _accept that some skanky dead chic put my lights out that easily. Maybe put me in crazy, limbo-world, but I _know _I'm not dead."

"Did you ever think that that's why ghosts exist? Because they just don't _want _to accept it?"

_This kid is quick. Either that, or she's a big fan of The Sixth Sense._

He had no reply for that one. "I've got to protect my brother." He said. "I've been protecting my brother for so long… it's the only thing I know how to do right." It felt odd to tell a little girl about his lifelong duty, but his whole existence had been so very odd that he'd probably be whacked in an asylum hopped up on happy pills if he ever told someone the full truth.

"How old is he?"

"What?" What? "Eh. We stopped celebrating birthdays ages back." _A tactful way of saying 'I don't really remember'._

"Why?"

"There just… didn't seem any point."

"Do you do Christmas? Easter? New Year? Anniversaries?"

"No. Not really." Dean cocked an eyebrow. "Squirt, you getting to a point anytime soon?"

"I… it's just… so… completely… insane. All my life I've been told that these things don't exist. That they're only thought up by producers with sick minds to cater to the wants of the fanbase. And then, all together, I'm told that they are real and I should be afraid as I wait for a demon to swoop down and magic me off to wherever."

"You put it that way, it really does sound insane." Dean muttered. "But if you want insane-" He stopped. Thought about it for a moment. _Yeah, Mary, I'm not just some psycho that's come in off the streets. I hunt these things, and make sure the dead stay dead. Tah da!_

"What?"

"Ah, never mind."

"What are you going to do when you catch her?"

"Make her put us back." He said matter-of-factly.

_Hopefully before the Reapers find us…_

* * *

_The Same Place at the Same Time:_

When Jo had called him, she was in a state of shock. Sam could tell because she was so completely calm as she spoke. Her voice didn't quaver once.

"There's been an accident." She said. "It's Dean."

The glass he had been holding crashed to the floor.

_What?_

Later Jo stood before him and the fearsome Ellen, judge, jury and executioner.

"Each and every time." Ellen was breathing steadily through her nose to try and calm herself, though any sudden moves would still not be tolerated. "Each and every time you go out that door you somehow manage to attract trouble like a magnet."

"Gee, Mom, I love you too." Jo sniped back, refusing to be intimidated.

Ellen narrowed her eyes. Sam could see the battle of emotions flick across her face. She was at once annoyed at the pair for not telling anyone else that they were working a job on Christmas Eve, concerned for Dean's wellbeing, furious at Jo for not sticking with her partner, secretly relieved that it wasn't her daughter that had been hurt, and guilty that she didn't see what was so blatantly obvious now.

Sam too was feeling guilty. And slightly hurt. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I guess we all have our secrets, huh, Sam?" She replied archly.

The two young people glared frostily at each other across the room. Ellen suddenly became animated and closed the staff door with a bang, breaking the spell. "It's been done." She said sharply. "Now it's time to go into damage control and figure out how to fix this thing."

"Yes, Ellen."

"Yes, Mom."

"That girl you said he was trying to save? What happened to her?" Ellen questioned.

"Hospital got an anonymous tip. Right after I got Dean out of the way. She's safe."

"As safe as anyone can be in a magical coma." Sam said darkly.

Jo's eyes narrowed.

"Did anyone see you?"

"No."

Sam made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. Ellen's eyes flashed. "Boy, if you're just going to try to pick a fight 'cause something's not the way you want it, go back to hold your brother's hand and let the grownups handle this." She said harshly.

"No, I… I'm sorry. I'll stay." Several times now, he had stood helplessly at the foot of Dean's bed, watching as his brother fought off whatever demons were in his head at the time. It made him feel so… useless.

"Good. 'Cause if this thing can send our kids to slumberland, we'll need all hands on deck to kick her scrawny ass to kingdom come."

Sam almost smiled then. He had always liked her 'you mess with us, we'll mess with you' attitude. Besides, Dean would never let him live it down if he handed over the case to mother and daughter.

Ellen had a friend that spent every Christmas at the Roadhouse since Bill had been alive. He was dark-skinned and tall, with a booming voice. Jo had taken him upstairs to the room where Dean lay.

"What do you make of it, Ruben?" Ellen asked as the man inspected Dean without laying a finger on him.

Ruben nodded.

"Voodoo. No doubt." He said, completely confident in his diagnosis. "The boy's as empty as a tree with termites."

"Voodoo? Is that bad?" Jo asked.

"What do you mean by 'empty'?" Sam enquired at the same time.

"One question at a time, kiddies. Firstly, some uneducated folk mix up the hoodoo and voodoo practises. Both very different things. Your hoodoo you can use for good or bad, right? Voodoo's the same. S'only Hollywood and them folk that have messed with people's heads telling them it's evil."

"But the girl who cast the spell or whatever is dead. How can it still be working?"

"The whole point of voodoo was to bring the living into contact with the dead. Sometimes the dead would choose to help us, God knows why, and would heal the sick while they were being possessed and suchlike. Looks like your little fairy princess has somehow turned the process on its head. Instead of contacting her, she's contacting them. Instead of healing, she's hurtin'. Like this poor mongrel. She's got him in a state of possession and she's bleeding him of whatever life he's got left."

_That does not sound good._

"But if we exorcise him, that would work, right?"

Ruben shrugged. "Maybe. There's only a bit of European culture in the voodoo mix, so yeah, I'd try, but I'd also go out and poke around. See if I can find any shrines or suchlike."

"Yeah." Sam said. "I'll go now." He turned to Ellen. "Can you do it?"

"Hell, whatever. Not like he's gonna be the first Winchester I've ever had to exorcise."

Any other time he would have stopped to ask her what she meant. Not now. "Thanks, Ellen."

She watched him leave the room. "Tail him." She instructed Jo. "Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Yeah, Mom."

"And don't mess up this time."

The door slammed after Jo went back out into the snow. Ellen glanced up at the clock. It was almost ten. They should get on it now, before the witching hour.

Yes, even she was a little superstitious.

"Gimmie a hand?"

"Of course, beautiful lady. It's been such a slow season until now."

She went down the stairs and pulled a giant keyring off a hook in the wall. Selecting the right one, she unlocked a trunk in the hallway and knelt down. Salt, bible, Holy water…

And a gun.

_Sorry, kids. I'm not going to put myself in the line of fire if I don't need to. And if I need to… it'll be quick. I promise._

Suddenly there was a startled shout from in the main body of the pub. Ellen's head snapped up and she practically wrenched the door off its hinges to in her haste to get outside.

"What the hell-?"

"Nothing, Ell." Mac said. "Just one of the girls having a fit."

"What?"

"Reckons that someone just tapped their fingers on the counter and there are cold spots all over the place. Fancy," He took a long drag on his cigarette. "Cold spots. In winter."


	9. It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

_Wandering spirits. Hitchhikers._

No matter how hard Dean tried, he could not manage to shut up that little internal whining, whinging voice.

_Phantoms. Wraiths. Poltergeists._

Mary's was sitting curled against his side, not for warmth, for neither of them could feel the cold, but to simply remind herself that she wasn't alone. That there was someone beside her, in it with her.

She didn't ask to be comforted, because she knew the words would be empty. She didn't ask to be consoled, because she knew whose fault it was. She didn't ask to be reassured, because she knew there was a very real danger that neither of them would get back.

She just didn't want to be alone.

"I'm sorry, Mary." Dean finally said.

"What have you got to be sorry for?"

"Because me and a friend of mine knew you were in trouble. We just didn't know what by. I guess we waited too long."

"Why do you know all this stuff?"

Dean remembered being walloped with the same question when Sam was seven. He had stuttered along with a rambling, incomprehensible explanation until his little brother rolled his eyes and wandered off to do something more interesting. Like watching paint dry. This time he went for the simple approach.

"It's my job."

"So you're like… a ghostbuster?"

"Sort of."

"Fabulous job you've been doing." She said sarcastically, and laughed, the old Mary again, the one that saw all this as a brilliant but whacked-out adventure. "Nah. I think you're more like… _Buffy_."

"Me? _Buffy_?" Dean tried for offended.

"Yeah. You know, _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_."

"I'm nothing like _Buffy. _For starters, she has _way_ better legs than me."

The two of them laughed again. Then Mary became serious. "Why would anyone want a job like that? Really?"

"Really? No one would ever want a job like that. This is how I was raised; this is all I know how to do. I'm a very dangerous person."

"You're not dangerous." Mary scoffed.

"And you're not short." He replied. She stuck her tongue out at him.

Dean rose. Stretched his legs. "You should get up. Go for a walk." He said.

"Why?"

"Humour the dead guy. Run around the block, get out of my hair."

Mary made a _'hrmph'_-ing noise as she clambered to her feet. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Maybe I can go to the mall. Oh, wait, I can't, because I'm _invisible_."

"Yeah, I get it. You're smart and I'm not. Go away. I need to think." He realised a minute too late that perhaps he was a touch harsh. He avoided kids by a rule. It was a touchy subject, looking into the face of someone that could have been in his future if life had been just an _iota _different.

"Mary-"

He turned, but she was gone. Just like that. Vanished. "Mary?"

_Great._

"Ah, Dean. You should know by now that if you turn your back on a kid for one minute, they'll wander off. Isn't that what Sam would always do? Why you were always so _angry _with him growing up? The boy could never take an order properly."

She was tall, with long, sleek black hair and sparkling green eyes. If Dean had seen her down the street any other time, he would have made a beeline directly to her. Unfortunately, he knew now who she was.

"Alice Summers."

"You know my name!" The woman exclaimed in childish delight. "I never expected you to know my name."

"You were waiting for me."

"Honey, believe me when I say you're _worth_ waiting for." She stepped forward, a hand on her hip. "Wow, new, _new_ breed of hunter." She looked him up and down appreciatively. "I'm picking up sort of a young Harrison Ford vibe."

"Thanks." Dean said. "That's sort of a compliment. I mean, even from a dead chick and all…" He kept his eyes on her as she walked slowly in a circle around him, taking him in from all angles.

"Where's Mary?"

"Oh, the little brat's fine. Honestly, I'd start worrying about yourself." She smiled. Dean's subconsciousness had assumed that a girl named Alice would be slim and petite and blonde and harmless. Of course, nothing was ever that simple.

"What have you done?"

"You're dead. Or will be soon." Alice said. "Are you scared yet?"

"Why?"

"Why not? All this disaster. All this life force. Keeps me going strong." She ran her tongue over her teeth. "The only worthwhile thing that creature gave me."

"All those kids…"

"So young, with such long lives before them."

"Why?"

"Why?_ Why_?" Her face creased into a scowl. "Why should _they_ have so many extra years to live, when _we _were the ones killed. They all deserve it. _He _deserves it."

"They're only kids. Harmless kids."

"You know what a harmless kid can grow up into." He could hear the scorn in her voice. _Sam. _"You know what they can become. You know what they can do. You know what _he _is still capable of."

"He's not a killer."

"Oh, go look in the mirror, Winchester." Alice looked like she was going to laugh. "You _are _killers. That's all you do. That's all you know _how _to do."

"Why are you here?" He demanded. "There must be a reason. Tell me!"

"Really?" She clapped her hands, delighted. "Do you _really_ want to know why I'm still here? What's keeping me here?"

Steeling himself, he looked up and met the wraith's eyes once more.

"Astound me." He said.

She cocked her head to the side. "Your brother." She said. "Little Sammy."

"Why? He never met you, had nothing to do with you."

"Is that what you think? I _died _because of your brother. Did you even realise that?" There was a hateful frown on her face, creasing her otherwise flawless features. "Because Azazel played favourites, we died. The Gifted Ones. The ones that would have ruled this world.

"He killed us. He killed us all. And then he turned his back on his _duty_."

"You're insane." Dean whispered.

"Darling, I can be whatever I want to be." She smiled. "But then I thought, Sammy-boy's actually pretty _tough_ behind those big puppy eyes and adorable pout. Now what could there be in this world that could possibly hurt him?"

_I do _not _like where this is going._

"…And the answer's so freaking obvious, you know? _You. _You could tear his heart out without lifting a finger. A few choice words and some home truths can be as effective as a sharpened stake. Go through one to get to the other. And of course _you_ couldn't resist being the angsty hero. Hadta chase the evil phantom down."

"How do you know me and my brother?"

"Dean, Dean, Dean. Where I am, you boys are pretty famous. I mean, how many times have you in particular died now? How many demons have you and your little group of vigilantes killed off? You've made a lot of powerful people very angry, and the one that finally ends up with you is gonna have a lot of offers for your soul. "

"Already done that." Dean said. "What do you mean, where you are? What are you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Alice Summers winked at him, the light settling into the crevices in her skin. The wrinkles in the wizened face, the sunken eyes that still seemed so bright.

Dean stepped back in surprise, horror rising in his throat.

"You're a… a-"

"Let's say it all together." Alice smiled. "Fear the Reaper."

* * *

_Meanwhile:_

"Go away."

"No."

"Go away, please?"

Sam realised pretty quickly that he was being tailed, but then, it was hard to be quiet and inconspicuous when you were skidding on black ice half the time. Jo's boots were heavy, and with a lot of tread, but she still found herself missing her footing occasionally. So she let Sam see her as she placed her feet neatly into his boot prints. It was always easier if you tackled a case knowing that the hunter by your shoulder was on your side.

Having company didn't particularly thrill Sam, and when Jo made it clear she was coming no matter how many times he told her to stay home, he resorted to fuming quietly.

_Hoo boy. Girl, you've been here before._

Only this time it wasn't herself in the direct line of fire. It was Dean. _Somehow whenever these two are here, I always expect myself to be the damsel in distress, not the other way round. _

In hindsight Jo thought the pair of them were pretty hypocritical. They both had secrets, they both knew they had secrets but pretended they didn't, and then when those secrets were exposed and got one of them into trouble, the other acted all hurt and offended about it.

And they say women are hard to figure out.

"Here we are." Jo said. "Number 32."

All the houses on the block were lit up like lightbulbs. No. 32 was the only one not flashing its Christmas lights into the neighbours' bedrooms. Instead it was locked fast and not one car was in the driveway.

"Nobody home. All at the hospital."

"Good."

It was kind of scary, the way he could get completely fixated on the one thing and doggedly follow whatever leads he had until he found an answer that suited him. And if the answer didn't suit him, he'd go out and hammer and pound it until it did.

This was one of those moments.

"Sam."

"What?"

"Put those away."

Sam looked guiltily down at his lock picks. "But-"

"Do you really think she would have left a shrine in the house where anybody could have found it? Jeez, you amateur."

Sam pulled a face and tucked them away and out of sight. "I suppose you're right."

"Of course I'm right." She pointed. "Look. Woodsheds. Garage. Pool."

"What would be in the pool?"

"I once busted a dude that was putting poison in the filter."

"Oh."

"I'm not a little girl anymore, you know."

"No, you're not."

"I do know these things."

"Yes, you do."

She sighed.

* * *

_Harvelle's Bar:_

Ellen stood at the foot of Dean Winchester's bed, a well-travelled, leather-bound book in her hands.

Bill once had a journal that he transcribed creatures he'd run into, some he hadn't, and some he thought were just a load of bull but he'd better jot them down anyway. He had taped a photo of himself and the girls on the inside cover.

Jo had a journal she had sewn an extra pocket in the inside of her jacket for, in which she stored facts and maps and an encrypted list of contacts, and almost all Ellen's clients kept one running at all times.

So it only made sense for Ellen herself to have one. And one of the first things she had done as a young woman was to write out the Roman Ritual in its entirety, the founding stone for each exorcism ritual that had come since.

She looked up at Ruben.

"Time to get this party started." He said. "Show a little faith, Ellen. They're good kids. They'll get the job done."

"I know." Ellen said, but her stomach still churned. "Ruben, what do we do if it doesn't work?"

"Then we keep running through it until the other Winchester boy comes back and tells us to stop."


	10. Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

_It made her a demon._

"Deus, et Pater Domini nostri Jesu Christi, invoco nomen sanctum tuum, et clementiam tuam supplex exposco-"

"Have you found anything, Jo?"

"Per eumdem Dominium. Amen-"

_It made her a freaking demon. Is that even possible?_

"Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, omni incursio adversarii, omne phantasma-"

"If he dies, it'll be my fault, again."

"He's a lot tougher than you give him credit for."

"-Jesu Christi eradicare-"

_A Reaper killing for the fun of it. Is that what Sam might've become?_

"I'm sorry."

"It's not over yet."

"Christum Dominum vias tuas perdere-"

_I don't… What do I do? _

"There's nothing I can do."

"-qui in isacc immolatus est, in Joseph venumdatus-"

"Snap out of it, Sam!"

"Qui cum Patre et eodem spiritu sancto vivit et regnat Deus, per omina saecula saeculorum. Amen!"

_Oh, God._

"Wait!"

Alice the Reaper stood before him, a smile on her face, one again the beautiful girl.

"Why?" He asked one more time.

"Because there are still us few that are loyal to our cause. There are still us few who are aware of your brother's betrayal and demand justice."

"All the rest of the psychics are dead. You know that. There's no one else to back you up."

"Not yet." She replied mysteriously. "But you of all people should know that just because you're dead doesn't mean you just fade away into nothingness. Honey, your mind would _blow _if you knew exactly how many of us are out there, just waiting for Sammy to trip up. Out for blood. _His._"

"You're crazy."

"We're all a little crazy." The Reaper said. "If we weren't, would you be here, right now? Wouldn't you have given Daddy the heave-ho to follow Little Brother's shining example? Go to university, get a job and a mortgage, marry a nice girl, have two-point-three kids, be _normal_? Don't try to fool me; you _still _want it."

"Are you going to kill me or talk me into submission?" Dean challenged. "So. You're gonna kill my brother. While you're at it, you're gonna massacre a few innocent kids along the way. Excuse me, but this is justice _how _exactly?"

"You'll understand." Alice said. "When you have become like me."

He stepped back, hands raised. "Whoa. I'll think I'll pass on the whole suck-away-people's-lives-for-the-hell-of-it thing, thanks."

"That wasn't a question."

_"Dues, conditor et defensor generis humani, qui hominem ad imaginem tuam formasti-"_

She wasn't quite sure why she shouted out 'wait!', only it seemed a good idea at the time.

There was a hole leading under the small garden shed that she had just noticed. Scratching and squeaking emitted from the tunnel. "Ew, rats."

"You think there could be something down there?"

"Yeah. Rats."

"Jo, I'm serious."

"So am I." Jo sank down on her haunches.

"What are you doing?"

"Someone has to stick their hand up the hole, don't they?" Jo grimaced. "And before you ask, that is definitely something I have never said before and hopefully never will again."

He smiled slightly. Jo slowly lowered her arm into the small passageway. "Good little ratties." She crooned under her breath. Sam wasn't sure whether she knew she was talking aloud. "Good little ratties wouldn't bite Jo with their pointy little teeth, would they?"

He watched her, her nose getting closer to the ground as she reached in deeper. Sam held his breath reflectively. This was traditionally the moment where either the monster jumps out, or the person with their hand in the hole gets their arm chewed off at the elbow.

"Careful."

"Thanks for the advice, Doctor Winchester." She said. "Ah!"

"What? Are you alright?" He demanded. "Jo?"

Silently, she pulled out her arm. There were grazes across her knuckles and a couple of bites on her fingers, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. She looked up and caught the expression on his face, halfway between concern and annoyance.

"Stop looking at me like that." Jo said sternly. "I've had all my shots, and as far as I know there's no such thing as a Were-rat."

Sam rid his face of any distinguishable expression whatsoever. "Did you find anything?"

Jo held up her hand. "Oh, only a voodoo necromantic charm." And there, dangling between her fingers was a seal that looked horribly familiar. She held it up to the light.

"What does it say?"

"I'm still a bit creaky on my linguistics skills." Jo confessed.

"You mean you can't read-?" He asked, incredulous.

"My bad for missing out on Occult Languages 101." She shot back, thrusting the cord at him.

Sam rolled the charm back and forth between his fingers.

"Uh oh."

"Uh oh's bad. What's uh oh?"

"This is."

"What does it say?" She echoed his earlier question.

"I've seen this type of charm before. It controls a Reaper."

He watched as the recognition rolled across her face.

"A… Reaper?"

"Not just _a _Reaper. _The _Reaper." He said grimly.

"I'm not following."

"The entity behind the legend. The Grim Reaper."

"You gotta be kidding."

The scratched-on Latin inscription could hardly be seen after being left outside to the elements. But it still looked incredibly new. _Erus Mors Mortis. Concedo mei imperium. _Jo pointed at the one bit she could read. "Lord Death." She said.

"Yeah."

"Crap."

"Yeah."

"Now what?"

"Um…" The answer was simple. Destroy it. Smash it. Grind its pieces into a fine powder. Dean would wake up, Mary Morgan would wake up, and everything would be fine again. But…

_How did a dead girl make a charm to repel the Grim Reaper when a ghost doesn't have any blood?_

"_Repelle, Domine, virtutem diaboli, fallacesque ejus insidias amove-"_

"My boss, he's not all that into what I do." Alice tossed back her long back hair. "Never was, even when I was alive. He tried to kill me, can you imagine? So I wouldn't blacken his reputation even more. Came into my room one night and tried to throttle me then and there. There was always rivalry between him and Azazel. Azazel never stuck to the rules when he could avoid it, and the chief wasn't very fond of him for that."

She smiled. "Never the closest of brothers, those two."

_Brothers?_

Fantastic.

"Who's your boss?"

"Darling, it's more than your life's worth if I told you. But then, you _really_ don't think your life is worth much at all, do you?"

It stung, but Dean attempted to keep a cool head. _Keep stalling._ "He doesn't like you?"

"Kept an uncomfortably close eye on me." She cocked her head to the side.

"What did you do?"

"Mary." Alice said. "I asked her to make a charm for me. Death couldn't and still can't approach whilst the amulet still exists."

"Your boss… is Death?"

_Of course it is._

"He's gone by many names over the centuries."

Dean met her gaze calmly. "You do know that as soon as I wake up, I'm gonna find this charm and dance on it."

Alice smiled.

"You wont do that."

"Give me one reason not to."

"Mary."

"What?"

"A vial of her blood, honey. I'm not am amateur. You send me to Hell, cutesy little Mary's coming along for the ride."

_Catch 22._

"You evil bitch."

"Why, thank you. Sweetie, would you have done anything else if you were in my shoes? You and me, we're not all that different. You see an opportunity and you grab it with both hands. At the end of the day isn't it all about survival?"

Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. "My life is not worth someone else's."

"As you have proven again and again. _Willingly _marching to your doom over and over."

_"Crucis Jesu Christo Domini nostri-"_

He felt sick, but not because what the Reaper was saying was true. His head was feeling stuffy, as if he had a bad cold, and his les grew weak as he sank down to the ground.

"No." Alice said. "No!"

"Ah…" Dean grasped his forehead. He could hear the voice now, or thought he heard it.

_"Adjuro te, serpens antique, per judicem vivorum et mortuorum, per factorem tuum, per factorum mundi, per eum-"_

_Time to come home, Dean._

I want to wake up.

"Dean, don't leave me here!"

The skinny arms were tight about his shoulders. "You can't leave me alone."

"Mary…" Dean whispered.

"Please."

_Dad, don't leave me alone. I can't do what you want me to do by myself._

"-David de rege saule spiritualibus canticis pulsum fugavit."

_There'll be a time where I wont have to leave you again._

With some effort he gathered the splintering fragments of his mind. He admired his friends and what they were attempting to do, but there was no way her was going to leave Mary behind. He was going to find a way to get the little girl out of her deal.

_I'm sorry, you guys. I've got a job to do._ He shook his head dazedly like a half-drowned man finally emerging from the water.

"Mary?"

"Dean!" And she threw her arms around him. An uncomfortable lump formed in his throat and he suddenly felt quite frightened as he awkwardly patted her on the top of the head.

"It's alright." He said. "Where did you go?"

"Where did _I_ go? Where did you go?" Mary retorted.

"Doesn't matter. We're both here now. I'm not leaving again."

"You think that's it?" The Reaper glowered and Mary shrank away. "You think that's the solution, loyalty and courage and _faith_? You're both still trapped and at my mercy."

"I don't think so." Dean said sharply. "'Cause if you were _really _going to take us down, you would have done it already. You haven't because you _can't_. Your boss always knew you were going renegade, and he managed to do something about it before you made the charm, didn't he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do. Maybe you can send us to crazy Purgatory world, but you can't kill us. Not really. The Yellow-eyed Demon's dead. He may have turned you into a Reaper, but I bet that as soon as he was out of the way, his brother tried his hand at breaking down all the damage he'd caused."

"You think you know the workings of the Below? You impertinent little-"

"Yeah. Cowardly, backstabbing, murderous, arrogant, no good bastard, you're gonna grind my bones into a paste and wear my ribcage like a hat, yada yada, I've _heard_ it, okay?" Dean smiled, finally beginning to break into his stride.

"You're as much of a prisoner here as we are."


	11. Silver Bells

"Blood. To be sure." Ruben inspected the small vial slotted into the charm.

"Blood?"

"Blood."

"Is there anything more specific?" Sam sounded frustrated.

"Boy, do I look like a scientist of any kind? What you see is what you get. Can't even tell you if it's animal or human. But my betting is: it's a kid's."

"It's a kid's what?" Jo pulled a face. "Kid's blood?"

"Yep."

"Man, that's completely feral. I mean, a kid? What the hell?"

"'Bout the only thing the studios got right in the big scheme of things." Ellen said. "The blood of a complete innocent is capable of doing some pretty heavy things."

"What sort of heavy things?"

"You know, binding links, curses, protection, opening doorways to other places."

"By 'other places' I'm guessing you don't mean across town?"

"Nope."

"Oh."

"I, for one, am surprised you haven't destroyed it yet."

Sam took the charm back from Ruben. "There's something not right about this." He said. "This thing doesn't look that old. So who's blood did she use? If I smash this, do I unleash the Reaper on someone who was innocent in this? A child?"

"So what do we do? Either Dean dies or someone else does."

_Catch 22._

"Dean would say not to do it." Sam mused. "He would say that his life isn't as important as a kid's. He genuinely believes that."

"He also believes leather hotpants are still in, _Revenge of the Cyclops People _is one of the biggest movies of this century, and the computer is on it's way out." Jo frowned.

"So what do we do?"

"Excuse I? _We_? You pair never want anything to do with me unless you want to drop me into a potentially dangerous situation."

"Yeah, but you were always so _willing_. 'Specially if Dean flashed you that suggestive smile of his." Sam cocked an eyebrow at her. Jo's mouth tightened.

"I am _so _going to hit you."

"Kids." Ellen said warningly. The argument was nipped in the bud and the tension evaporated. "We haven't got time for this. I like a good bit of shouting as much as the next person, but we've got two lives hanging in the balance. Maybe more if we don't stop this… woman."

"Two? Oh, right." In the heat of the moment, Sam had almost forgot that there was a little girl in there with Dean, along for the ride. Mary Morgan. A ten-year-old girl thrust into the middle of an adventure that she might not make it back from.

_Don't even think that. Of course they'll make it back._

Sam had lost track of how many times his brother swore he hated kids. Probably stemming from the time they _were_ kids and he had been almost solely responsible for his brother's upbringing since he was around five or six, still a child himself. And to be perfectly honest, Sam was never exactly a model brother.

But he never got upset, never lost his temper. At least, not where the toddling Sam could see him. As he got older he found out how his big brother kept his rage in check.

_The same way Dad did, beating the snot out of every evil thing between here and there._

"It's safe to assume Dean and the girl are in the same place." He said. "Dean wont let anything happen to her."

_Sammy, you trust me and my hokey mojo, and I'll trust you and your black magic._

Ruben clapped his hands together, breaking everyone from their trances. "Let's get moving, then."

* * *

Mary's hand had slipped into his and she was squeezing so tightly that it would have probably cut off his circulation if he needed to worry about circulation. Dean looked down his nose at the Reaper, knowing that finally, _finally,_ he had the upper hand.

"We can help you." He said, his voice carefully blank.

"Help me do what?" Alice narrowed her eyes, now more curious than menacing.

"Your boss or whatever is keeping you here. We can help you escape. Just let us go first. At least let the girl go." He fixed her with the Winchester stare, hard, dangerous and vulnerable all at once.

The Reaper grinned, then laughed. She giggled hysterically. "You want to make a deal with me! Boy, I thought you would have learned your lesson by now. Guess I was sure wrong."

Dean stiffened. "You know-?"

"I'm a Reaper, Dean. While us and the crossroads demons aren't exactly going to be sharing BFF bracelets anytime soon, I can tell you that both our lines of work fit neatly hand-in-hand." She raised a finger to her lips. "Gossip. Mundane, but useful if you know how and when to use it. You'd be surprised about what legends are going around about the Winchesters. Like children about a campfire."

Dean blinked, not knowing what unsettled him more. The fact that him and Sam and Dad were the subjects of gossip, nay, rumour deep south, or the fact that a bunch of demons regularly gathered around the satanic water cooler to bitch about their jobs.

She shrugged. "Word gets about. You boys are famous. B-uuut, of course, the Harvelles are swiftly catching up in the most-hated category. There are a few other families, but, really, you are the only ones of any consequence."

"What-?"

"Didn't darling little Jo ever tell you that Ellen and Bill hunted together? That's how they met. And Blondie herself is pretty good for a newbie. Ask her how many she's killed. Ask her how many enemies she has. Maybe then she'll earn a little respect in your eyes."

"I respect-"

"You don't even respect yourself, with the whoring and the boozing and that ever-present sense of self-loathing." The corner of her mouth lifted into a scornful sneer. "Always running, always alone. Reaching out your hand to touch but snatching it back at the last moment, afraid to be burned."

"You are such a sweet-talker." Dean replied dryly, but his mouth was completely dry. _How long has she been watching us?_

"Sarcasm." She cocked her head. "The lowest form of wit and, as always, your first defence. Tell me, why should I believe you would willingly help someone like me when you have been nothing but a hindrance to me and my kind?"

"You mean, 'cause like, I kill you and you kill me?" Dean shrugged. "Not seeing many options here. For either of us."

Mary was looking between them both with each exchange, long past the stage for puzzlement. Her eyes narrowed, and Dean knew that another wisecrack was not far off the horizon. And that the Reaper would probably tell them to get stuffed if Mary voiced her thoughts.

"You need us and we need you." He said softly, almost choking on the last word. His pride once again pricked uncomfortably. He didn't do deals with devils. He blew them away, dammit.

Alice stared at him with those big green eyes of hers. As she pondered his offer, she pursed her pouty red lips.

"How?" She finally said.

Good question.

_Improvise, Dean. You're good at this._

"Not yet." He said firmly. "Let the girl go first."

"Dean, no-!"

"What makes you think I'll even consider something like that?"

Dean met her stare steadily. "Because if she's dead, her blood is null and void, and BOOM, the charm stops working. Dear old Death comes swooping down in his hooded cape swinging his scythe just for you."

He didn't know whether that was true or not, but hoped that because Alice had heard of his occult reputation he could bluff Mary's way out to safety. And then he could concentrate wholeheartedly on escaping himself and toasting this bitch.

"But-"

"Yes or no?"

"You-"

"Yes or no?"

Alice scowled. The troubled crease in her brow told him that she had fallen for his throwaway line. Let's face it, she had been just an ordinary human, and shortly after she became a Reaper, she was cast out of the fold. Therefore, she was easier to fool. Dean hoped.

"Yes." Alice nodded reluctantly.

"No!" Mary shouted. She punched him hard in the leg, trying to snap him to his senses. "You idiot. I'm not leaving you here with her."

"Mary-"

"No. We both get out. Together." There was a fierce loyalty to her words. He couldn't understand what he'd done to earn it.

Dean knelt down. Looked the girl in the eye. "Mary." He said, quashing the emotion that threatened to overwhelm his voice. "Go home. Live a long life. Forget this ever happened. Forget me. Be normal. It's better that way."

"What if I don't want to be normal?" There were tears in her eyes. "How do I do that when I know that nightmares are real? How do I get up every day and pretend that everything is the way it should be? I don't want you to die. You're my friend."

_You're my friend_.

"It is to vomit." The Reaper muttered.

He reached forward impulsively and wrapped her in a strong bear hug. "It's hard to pretend everything's normal when it isn't. Believe me, I've tried." He whispered in her ear. "You know what to do. I trust you"

And then she was gone, falling away from the Reaper, falling away from Harvelle's Bar, falling away from Dean. Everything got fuzzy and distant and though she fought to keep herself awake, in the end exhaustion won out.

* * *

She could hear the town clock. BONG. BONG. BONG. Eleven times. It was eleven o'clock at night. Her arm itched, and she automatically reached out to scratch it.

Mary's eyes snapped open. "Oh, jeez. What a nightmare." She reached out to flick on the bedside lamp, before realising that it wasn't there.

"What-?" She sat up.

This wasn't her room.

It was white and starched and clean. So clean that for a moment Mary wondered what sort of creepy world she woke up in this time. The smell of bleach burned the inside of her nose and made her sneeze.

She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her pyjamas. Something funky was going down. She slipped from underneath the harsh covers, and realised where she was. St Jerome's Hospital. She had been here a month before when she fell out of that tree and needed to get five stitches in her forehead.

Mary pulled on her pink, fluffy nightgown that had been folded neatly on a chair by the bed along with a fresh change of her clothes. There was a massive bouquet of lilies, her favourite flowers, on the dresser, a card with a puppy with a thermometer in its mouth tucked among the stems.

_Get well soon, Mary. Love Mommy and Dad._

Mary stared at it, shocked and a little afraid as the meaning sank into her mind.

It wasn't a nightmare.

The Reaper Alice Summers, the ghosts, Harvelle's, the charm, blood. It was all real. It was all…

_Dean._

Mary raised a hand to her mouth. She could have screamed, but no sound would have come out if she had tried. _She'd left him there!_ Never before had she identified so much with an adult. He was a little bit lost, a little bit strange, like she was. _She'd left him there, and… and…_

He trusted her. He said she'd know what to do. Mary narrowed her eyes and paced across the floor for a moment. She could hear the hospital night staff singing carols down the hall and let out a sigh of relief.

It was still Christmas Eve! It felt like weeks since she was last able to touch things, hold them, dash them to the floor…

_What do I do?_ "What do I do?" She repeated aloud.

_I need help._

She was so tired. Her body was yelling at her, _screaming _at her to curl up and go back to sleep.

No! I've got to help Dean!

_How can you help him when you can't even help yourself?_

There's got to be a way…

_Yeah, do what the man said, grow up and forget about all this junk. Maybe even one day you'll have your own sister or brother to watch out for._

That was it! Mary punched her fist into the air in triumph. Of course! Sam Winchester! But how…? There wasn't exactly much point in her and Dean swapping mobile numbers in that crazy limbo place, so how…? She forced herself to remember any detail that may lead her to Dean's little brother_. Come on, girl. This is what you do. You're the freaky genius kid, remember._

There had been a phone in the back, an old wall phone that hardly anyone had any more. Although most of the creepy dudes that congregated around a place like that were bound to be ex-directory, the Bar must have had at least that one established landline if they were going to keep up the facade of being normal to everyone that weren't in on the big secret.

_Façade of being normal. Oh, heck. What have I gotten into now?_

Opening the door quietly, she peered down the corridor. A couple of paces down the hall was an empty administration desk, a few feet further was a public phone. The only problem was that the hospital staff seemed to be having their Christmas party only inches away in the next room. Mary audibly gulped.

_Come on, you can do it. Time's running out. He trusted you._

She ran silently on bare feet down the hall, flinching away from any light source that was shone her way, thinking that she would be discovered at any moment. Reaching the phone, she lifted the local directory off the hook and flipped through to the H's.

"S & D Harlowe, Harvenne J, D Harley, _Harvelle's Bar_." Mary grinned, and ripped the page from the book, staring at the number. Her hands were shaking. It felt like she'd just found the Holy Grail.

Slowly she rose and punched in the number, jamming the page in the pocket of her dressing gown. _Please, please, please…_

_"Harvelle's Bar."_

"Uh, hi." She said, her voice suddenly higher and more girlish than ever. "Could I talk to Sam Winchester? Please?"

* * *

**A/N –** Out of curiosity, I've posted a poll on my profile page, where readers can vote for their favourite original female character from my stories and I can see how well they were received.

If you want, tell me how good or bad they were and why. All constructive criticism helps.


	12. You're a mean one, Mister Grinch

There was silence on the end of the line for a long moment, and Mary wondered whether they were still there. Just as she opened her mouth to ask once again, the woman was back, her strong, brisk voice tempered by curiosity.

"_Who is this?"_

"Mary." Mary swallowed. "Mary Morgan. Please, can I talk to Sam Winchester? It's about his brother. Please?"

The receiver was dropped. Mary heard people talking sombrely in the background. There was a buzz of static as the phone was once again picked up. _"Sam Winchester speaking."_ He sounded young and serious and a little bit frightened. Did he already know about…?

There was something strange about Dean, something he didn't want to tell her. She knew that already. Was he Dean's partner in this _Ghostbusters _gig?

By the by, where was Dean anyway? His body?

"_Mary? Are you-?"_

"The Mary that was with Dean." She whispered. "She let me go. He tricked her into letting me go."

"_Who?"_

"She said she used to be a Reaper before they got rid of her."

Silence. Then he spoke again. _"Mary, we don't have much time. I need you to tell me everything _now_."_

"Um, her name is Alice Summers, she used to live in my house No. 32 ages back, and she said she used to be a human, and was turned into a Reaper." She stopped to bite her lip, wondering how to summarise all she had heard.

"_Yes?"_

"She said that her boss was out to kill her because she went renegade, but she made a charm to stop him. But when some dude called Azazel died, she lost her powers and the… head Reaper kind of… kicked her out of the club, so she can't really kill anyone. I guess the people she touches sort of… stay there… until their bodies…" She shivered.

"_You still with me?"_

"Yeah."

"_Right, he told that lie to get you out of harm's way." _He said firmly. _"So you could tell us what's going on. Go home or to your parents or whatever and stop worrying. We can take over from here."_

"You'll get him back?"

"_You bet."_

Mary cradled the receiver. "If I give you my phone number, can you call me when it's over?" She asked in a little voice, not knowing what this faceless Sam would say to her.

"I don't think it would be good for us to call a house phone-" 

"I have my own cell." She said quickly. "Since I was eight."

There was another moment of silence as he thought about it. _"Give me your number." _He said finally. _"I'll get him to call. But whatever you do, _do not _tell anyone about this _or_ us. If someone starts to dig and randomly throws up our names, lie."_

"I'm ten; no problem with the lying. But why would anyone ask about-?"

"_Mary, we're kind of working to a deadline here."_

"Oh, right."

* * *

_The Ghost of Christmas Past:_

It was Christmas Day when Sam and Dean found out why their father had been in such a foul mood the night he broke Sam's watch.

The brothers were in their dingy, flat-of-the-moment with a set of instructions from Dad that they were to scour the room from top to bottom, to leave no trace that they were ever there. It was a test, Dad said. He didn't want to see any evidence that the room had ever been let out when he got back.

Dean was shoving his clothes carelessly in his bag while Sam was folding each article neatly. "Pansy."

"Moron." _Somehow it doesn't have the right ring to it._

"That's everything." His brother threw aside his bag, sighing.

"Not everything." Still sitting on the coffee table was Dad's journal. "He'd kill us if we'd left that behind."

"But Dad says-"

"Don't be such a baby, Dean." Sam reached for it, but at the same time his brother stuck out his leg to trip him up. "Hey!"

"Oops."

Sam hit the floor hard. "Ow!"

"As the Boy Scouts say, be prepared, Sammy."

"You were never a scout." Dean grinned, holding out a hand to help him up. Sam smiled as he took it, before using all the weight in his skinny body to swing his brother onto his back beside him.

"Ow."

"Gotcha."

The two of them grinned. It had been such a long time since the pair of them were just able to fool around, to be ordinary brothers.

"Dad'll be home soon."

That ruined the mood like nothing else.

"Yeah." Sam sighed. "I guess we better get up."

"Yeah."

Briefly Sam wondered whether their dad would he come back in and be all bah-humbug-Christmas-is-for-the-weak wacko again, but banished the thought. He flexed his long legs and flipped to his feet. Dean raised an eyebrow before climbing upright in a more conventional way. But as he did, the toe of his heavy boot caught under the table and almost sent him tumbling down again.

The journal fell to the floor.

"You okay, man?" Sam grinned. "Dude, your balance sucks."

Dean rubbed his shin. "Bite me, shrimp."

"Soon I'll be taller than you!"

"You'll always be Shorty to me."

Several photos had fallen out of the journal. Dean picked them up. The one on the top was one of the two boys, taken three years ago by a 'good fried' of Dad's that neither of them had ever met before that day.

"I'd forgotten how much of a geek you were."

"Shut up."

There was one of a fair-haired woman sitting on the bonnet of a black car, laughing at the person behind the camera. Sam noticed his brother's shoulders stiffen as he ran his eyes over the familiar face.

"That's Mom?"

"That's Mom." He sighed. Sam glanced at him curiously. He must have really loved her. In a way, he loved her too. As his brother's mother and his father's wife. He had been too young when she died to remember her any other way. Though, occasionally he liked to imagine that he could hear her singing to him, feel the touch of her hands. Though there was no way he was ever gonna tell his big brother that.

The next after that was a photo of Dad. He was maybe sixteen, with messy brown hair and a cheeky grin.

"Well, what do you know? Photographic evidence to prove that the old man has indeed been known to smile." Dean grinned a little himself.

"Who's that guy with him? He looks kinda like you."

"Y'think?" His brother struck a pose. "Dunno. I've never seen him before

He looked a couple of years older, his arm flung carelessly across John's shoulders. His hair was such a dark brown it was almost black and his eyes were a peculiar shade, stuck somewhere between brown and blue and green, _actually, they_ do_ kind of look like Dean's,_ Sam thought fleetingly.

Dean flipped the photo over. Scrawled across the back in a neat, spindly writing he had never seen before, someone had left a small note.

_Remember that year we had to go to the lake?_

_ Tell Mary I'm sorry for not making Christmas dinner this year; I'll definitely be up in Kansas to see you guys when the kid's born. After that it'll be the last you'll see of me for a while. You know, places to go, things to do. _

_PS – Give Dean a hug from Drew, would ya?_

"Hm." Dean flipped it over again, searching for clue that weren't there. "D'you think this guy is like us?"

"No. No one else could be this disturbed."

Once Dean would have chastised him for the attitude, now he just grinned wryly. "No kidding." He said. "Does this guy look a little familiar to you or is that just me?"

"That's just you. He must've been important at one stage for Dad to put him in the journal, though. I wonder who he is?"

"Sam? Dean?"

"_Dad_!" Both boys jumped. John Winchester was standing in the door, observing quietly.

John noticed the way the pair of them flinched away from him, and felt ashamed. They were his sons! He shouldn't take out his frustration and anger on them! Did he want them to hate him for the rest of his life?

Mary wouldn't have wanted that.

He walked over, and slowly sank down beside his boys, each muscle screaming in protest as he sat cross-legged on the floor. He gathered the photos together, as if he could keep their subjects locked inside him forever.

"Everyone I held near." He said. "All gone now, except you both. My boys." He closed his eyes, took a breath. _Come on, John. You've done harder things than this. _"I had no right… to treat you like I did."

_But you still did! _Sam wanted to say, but held his tongue for the sake of his brother, his only real friend, who idolised their father despite it all.

"Then why did you?" Dean asked, giving John an opening to explain, his wide eyes _begging _him to explain.

And John found that he couldn't.

"It's another secret, isn't it?" Sam said bitterly, eyes downcast.

"My… a friend died last night. A stupid, _stupid _accident." John said suddenly. "And I… wasn't myself. Ha! That's no excuse." He pulled Sam and Dean close to him, resting his chin on the top of Sam's head. "Even I don't understand half the things I do." He muttered, mostly to himself. "How could I have let this happen?"

"Dad-" Dean began.

"You boys be there for each other, right? No one gets left behind." He pulled in a long, shuddering breath. "Don't make the same mistake I did."

"We wont. You know that-" And then the words sank into Sam's mind. _You boys be there for each other, right? Don't make the same mistake I did._

The photo of two young men in the journal. The note to Mary and John, apologising for missing Christmas Dinner, and promising to come around when the baby was born. His death unhinging their father more than usual. Was is even possible that-

Was he Dad's _brother_?

* * *

_The Ghost of Christmas Present: _

Sam hung up the receiver. The other hunters in the room aware of the Winchesters' predicament looked up at him expectantly. Jo, who had taken the call, looked up at him hopefully. If Dean died this Christmas, it would be because of her and her failure to anticipate the actions of a person she worked with, failure to be prepared, and failure to predict the likely turn of events.

All of which were potentially deadly.

Mom was right. I should've stayed home to work the bar.

_Yeah, surrounded by a bunch of increasingly pervy old men._

None of this would have happened… 

_S'pose so, but then you would have been among the ones turned extra crispy when the Roadhouse was flattened._

No matter how crap their lives were, none of them wanted to die. Not really.

Sam's face was grim, though his eyes shone with a mild triumph.

"Sam?"

"He tricked a Reaper into letting him go with another of his cock-and-bull stories." He said, and although he tried for annoyed, he only managed to sound relived.

"He's still alive?" Relief also washed through Jo, and she sighed, letting go some of the tension she had been holding.

"Mary doesn't know for how long." He stared down at the charm, which was still dangling from his fingers.

"What are you thinking?" Jo asked.

"Since the kid's awake, what if we remove the vial without breaking the charm?" _Would that sever the link between the Reaper and the kid? Would the Grim Reaper be then drawn toward the renegade that's been causing him so much trouble?_

As one, they turned to the resident voodoo expert, Ruben. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then he shrugged. "You know." He said. "Twenty-five years I've been working the beat, and you guys are the first people to ask me whether _removing the vial_ would work."

"Well, will it?"

"Haven't got the faintest idea."

There was a collective slump. "But," Ruben raised a hand to gain their attention. "I can safely assume that by removing the life-force, a.k.a, the blood, the binding link would be severed."

"You sure?" Sam asked, desperately seeking confirmation.

"Ah, sure." He flapped his hand dismissively. "It'd be like… slicing a part out or burning some of it off." Jo noticed Sam rub his arm self-consciously. "Not a proper link then, hey? A blood amulet is the same in principal, _it needs to be a complete circuit_."

He leaned back, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. "Pretty good, if I do say so myself."

"Don't strain your arm patting yourself on the back." Ellen said dryly. "We can party _if_ it works."

"Do you doubt me, dear woman?"

"Mom!"

Jo looked disgusted as Ellen fought a small grin from appearing on her face. Sam's hand curled around the charm and he smiled. _Parent that has been single for God knows how many years proves they still have it._

He could imagine Dean reacting in a similar way if the boys had ever been introduced to whatever girlfriends Dad may have had during those long years.

"Alright." Sam opened the door to the bar area and sat down at the counter where the best light was. "I'll need a very sharp knife, a small set of pliers, a soft cloth and a nailfile."

Jo donated the very sharp knife and nailfile. Ellen dug out a small set of pliers from the Harvelle First Aid Kit that sat under the bar in case of emergencies (Sam had looked at her when she pulled them out from among the antiseptic and the bandaids, she had just shook her head. "Don't ask.") Ruben had lent him a soft velvety cloth to wrap the vial in, the velvet cloth which he occasionally kept his crystals in.

Yes, his crystals.

And Sam set to work.

He had always been good at working to a deadline, even at Stanford. You had to learn to be quick but not rush, know your time was running out, but not work yourself into a panic. Very few students could do that, but Sam had learnt to work quickly with a quiet dignity in those long years while he waited to be rid of the Winchester curse.

After a tense half hour, the vial could slip around the charm in his fingers. "Got any grease?"

"Cooking fat do?"

"Yeah, sure."

At Sam's gesture, Ellen poured a small amount over his hands and the charm. He worked it around and around, knowing he couldn't break the glass and getting more and more frustrated with each turn. Finally, there was a loud snap.

"What did you break?" Jo said shrilly.

"Nothing!" He shot back defensively. He opened his hand. There, resting on his palm, was the vial of blood that had been set into the Coptic cross. Nothing was broken, nor even snapped.

Both he and Jo looked up toward the upstairs rooms, hoping that there would be some sign, some thump that meant Dean had awoken. "Nothing." Sam whispered. "Nothing."

Jo grabbed his shoulders and spun him around on the oscillating stool. "So you're giving _up_?" She demanded. "You've broken the link. We just need something else to push at the barrier." She glanced up to her mother and Ruben.

"Would the exorcism work properly now that the binding link is gone?"

* * *

_The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come:_

Mary was safe. The thought was comforting as he closed his eyes. His fists slowly unclenched and hung uselessly at his sides.

"It is done." Alice said. "Tell me of this great plan of yours, then."

Dean looked up at her, took a breath.

"Has anyone ever told you how gullible you guys are?"

"You _lied_."

"I prefer to think of it as embroidering the truth."

"I'll kill her." The Reaper vowed. "I'll hunt her down and destroy her."

"I don't think so." Dean said. "'Cause in a few minutes, you'll be dead. Permanently, this time. Y'see, I told Mary to call my brother, the Sam you hate so much, and tell him everything. Time's up, Alice."

She smiled, a happy and horribly insane grin. "I will be remembered." She whispered. "I will be remembered as the one that brought down the unkillable Winchester!" And she lunged for him, claws scrabbling for a hold, now no more than bones wrapped in a tattered shroud.

_"Qui cum Patre et eodem spiritu sancto vivit et regnat Deus, per omina saecula saeculorum. Amen!"_

Dean felt a small thrill of triumph as he darted away. He'd been a phantom long enough.

"No." The Reaper breathed. "There's more than one way to stay out of Hell."

And she seized him, clawed hands around his throat. Dean gagged. He could _feel _her claws. He could _feel_ her squeeze and shake him. And for one truly terrifying moment he was certain that he was going to die, that there wasn't going to be any more miracle saviours at the last moment.

"More than one way to stay out of Hell…"

_"-David de rege saule spiritualibus canticis pulsum fugavit."_

Sam's hands were clenching and unclenching. He was glad Ellen was reading the exorcism ritual, because he didn't think he would have been able to. He would have dropped the book, or would have stuttered so badly the words wouldn't have been legible.

He looked up and noticed that Jo was once again chewing her bottom lip. Unlike Sam, she was making no effort to hide her anxiousness. He had been irrationally angry with her before, before finally grudgingly admitting it had just been a run-of-the-mill routine job that managed to work itself up into disastrous proportions.

Didn't that always happen?

"Hey." He said quietly, careful not to disturb Ellen or Ruben. Jo peered up at him. He could see it in her eyes that she was half waiting for him to shout at her again.

"It's not your fault." Jo gave a crooked smile but didn't say anything. She reached out and gave his hand a quick reassuring squeeze before stepping back to observe. Her brows were knitted in thought.

"I never notice before. He looks so tired." She said softly.

"It's been a long year." Sam replied.

"Preaching to the converted over here, Sam."

Ellen's voice dropped away to silence. Nothing. Not a twitch. The absolute quiet was almost interminable. Sam closed his eyes and hauled in a long, shuddering breath. "That's it, then." He said tonelessly. _You always knew that something like this was going to happen._

Though he'd somehow always imagined that the two of them would die together side-by-side, facing insurmountable odds, the hordes of Hell. Doing what was right. Soldiers. Brothers. Not even death could stop them from doing what needed to be done.

Ruben looked up at the surviving Winchester. His eyes were sad and distinctly fatherly, something Sam had never really known. "Give the word and we'll keep at it until we're blue in the face. It was a good idea. Might still work."

"No, thanks, Ruben. Thanks a lot."

"Sam-" Jo started.

"It's over, Jo. I don't have any more ideas."

"I do." She said, and before Sam had time to react, Jo had swept up the Coptic cross and dropped it. As he watched, stunned, she smashed the heel of her boot into it and ground the charm into the floor.

"Are you _mad_?" Sam grasped her by the shoulders. It was all he could do not to shake her.

"What other choice is there?" She growled back. "Let him just linger God knows where? You severed the binding link."

"We don't know for certain! That was completely reckless!"

"Newsflash, Sam. We take risks to get the job done!"

He let her go, stunned. The determined but relatively harmless little girl he and Dean had met on one of their early hunts had grown up into an equally determined but no-so-harmless femme fatale.

Sam had come across the attitude in others like them he had met along the way. The approach to their jobs, _'get it done and get it gone'_, leaving no opportunity to think things through in terms of right and wrong.

_If she turns into another freaky-ass psycho like Gordon Walker, I'm gonna snap her neck._

"Sam?" It was Ellen. Sam shook his head, disgusted that he could have even considered for a moment the possibility of killing Jo and shocked at the sudden outpouring of savagery within him. Dude, what's happening to you? "Sorry." He said. "Sorry."

Jo turned away.

The room was quiet. And then someone spoke into the void created by their silence.

"Damn, Sammy. Lately you're always shittin' someone off."

Sam turned slowly, hardly daring to believe his own eyes. Dean was raising himself up on the pillows a little, giving him a better vantage point as he stared at the people in the room with a slightly bemused expression on his face.

"You're alive."

"'Course I am, doofus." He said, but there was no real conviction behind his words. Jo glanced at his slightly glassy eyes and pursed her lips, but said nothing.

"Are you… alright?"

"Got one mother of a headache, if that's what you mean." He smiled.

* * *

A job well done.

There was a cheery vibe in the air as the group finally dispersed to seek the sanctuary of their beds. It took several hours from start to finish, but they had retrieved one of their own. From the jaws of death, no less. Most went to their rooms with a feeling of accomplishment.

Most.

Jo Harvelle waited at the top of the stairs for Sam to finally leave his brother's room. Her eyes were narrowed as the pondered the fragments of thought that tumbled through her mind.

During the time she left her mother at the Roadhouse, she had learned the hard way that while working a case there was a major difference between easy and _too_ easy. Easy was when you busted the job without breaking a sweat._ Too_ easy was when you thought the bad guy was dead, but he still ends up biting you in the butt when you least expected it.

Jo's thoughts as soon as Dean opened his eyes?

Too easy.


	13. The Night Santa Went Crazy

It was almost midnight by the time Sam left the room, closing the door behind him. Jo snapped herself to attention and reached out to take his arm as he passed. Sam had looked confused as she accosted him in the darkness, but her face was deadly serious.

"Walk with me." It was less of a question that a directive. Sam inwardly shrugged. She probably wanted to know about-

"Something's not right." Jo said abruptly.

"What?" She repeated her assertion slowly, as if she thought he was a bit thick.

"What's not right?"

Jo cast a look back to Dean's room. "Not here." She took hold of his arm.

Sam pulled himself out of her grip as soon as they were both standing in the dark and deserted bar area. "Jo, what's going on?"

The blonde woman looked around the bar, as if to ascertain that the room was indeed empty. "Sam." She said, her eyes flickering from side to side, unable to look him in the face. "I… I don't think that's Dean."

Sam's confusion grew. "Of course – You saw him yourself-"

"That's not what I mean." She looked almost pained. "That's his body, but… but I don't think that's his mind." There, it was out. "I think he's still possessed."

"How can you say that?" Sam's voice grew louder and Jo vainly tried to shush him. "I mean, you're the one that woke him up in the first place."

"I'm telling you, Sam. That's not Dean. It's not like him at all."

"And of course _you_ know exactly what my brother's like." He almost sneered it out and Jo stepped back in surprise. "This is, what? The second time you've hunted together? And suddenly you know all about him?"

Sam stepped back, one hand on the banister. "I know you probably mean well, but I think I should know my own family." And he vanished up the stairs.

Jo stared at his retreating back. She always did things like this. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many things she did, no matter how much she wanted to prove herself, she always seemed to piss people off.

Sighing, she too slowly climbed the stairs, taking pains to lock the door securely before falling into bed.

* * *

Quarter past twelve, and Jo still couldn't get to sleep. She was wired, even though she fruitlessly tried to let herself come down. Every time she thought that sleep was just around the corner, she remembered Dean's creepy grin and jolted awake with a start, the same thought running through her head.

_That's not Dean Winchester._

How would you know, kid? A lot has changed since you last saw that family. We've all grown in different directions, we're all different people. It's like Dad used to say: you can never really know a person, even if you spend every day beside them.

_No matter how much we've changed, we're still the same inside._

_But that's not Dean Winchester!_

She wrapped the pillow around her head, but only succeeded in making her thoughts echo louder. Dean's smile, the kinda awkward way he had been holding himself, it was like… it reminded her so much about the time that Sam went evil and came for her.

_That's not Dean Winchester._

It was like something was wearing him.

She sat up, unable to take the thoughts that were jumbling about in her head anymore. She wasn't a particularly intellectual type, and this train of thought was making her head pound. Jo pulled on some slacks and jammed her feet into her trainers. Maybe a jog around the block would dispel the feeling of impending doom.

Yeah, that'd work.

She was around the block and coming back to the Bar when she realised that it didn't make any difference. Not in the slightest. The feeling of being in immediate danger still sat heavily in her stomach.

_If someone was gonna die, wouldn't Sam have gone all 'I see dead people' by now…?_

There were footprints leading out the door and around the back. Jo stopped and studied them. Much larger than her own foot, they could have only been made by a man. Maybe it was just an ordinary burglar?

Nah.

_I told you so._

Her common sense screamed at her to go back inside and get her dad's old shotgun out from under the bar, but her instincts screamed just as loudly that if she left to retrieve a weapon, she could have given the man time to slink away into the shadows. He could vanish into the night, like everything else in this godforsaken place.

There was a shovel by the front door. Dark graveyard sods were still sticking wetly to the steel. Jo hefted it in one hand, thanking God that she had always been a natural with the javelin.

_Maybe it won't end like that._

Yeah, maybe not. But it probably will.

There were still several cars out back, and the snow had been compacted into deadly back ice by their weight. Jo didn't see the Winchesters' Impala until she cracked her knee against the fender and bit her lip to prevent herself from swearing.

Just then, she heard someone walking toward her and she ducked down behind the front passenger's side tyre, crunching in the ice.

He was tall and lean, wearing only a t-shirt despite the cold. His vacant eyes swept over where she was hiding behind the Impala, before dismissing the noise as just another animal. Jo's mouth dropped open as she saw his face.

_I _knew_ that wasn't Dean Winchester. I _knew_ it was too easy._

I hate it when I'm right.

Dean pulled a small bottle from his pocket. Heart in her throat, she watched as he unscrewed the lid before drawing out a large and wickedly sharp knife from his belt. The moon glinted off the blade, and Jo knew without a doubt what was going to happen next.

The thing in Dean placed his knife against his arm and pressed down. A thin red stripe appeared on his skin and began to bleed. He let the droplets run down his fingers and caught most of the red liquid neatly in the container.

_Oh no._

"Jo." The voice was clear and correct, and very… un-Dean-ish. "Did you really think I wouldn't know you would follow me?"

Jo pondered hiding for a moment before rejecting it and stepping out into the light. "How did you know it was me?"

"You're a hunter and a woman. That makes you one of the nosiest people alive."

"And who are you, then?"

"You know."

Her lip curled as she recalled the information she had first shown Dean. It felt like weeks had passed since they first met up to discuss the case of the disappearing Santa. "Alice Summers. The Reaper."

"So well informed. Your Daddy must be so proud. Oh, wait…" Alice smiled through Dean, and the result was like that of some demonic ventriloquist dummy.

Jo hefted the shovel. "I wont let you make another binding charm." She said. Because that was undoubtedly what the Reaper was trying to do; bind herself to Dean.

"You kill me, you kill this body."

"Dean wouldn't want it any other way."

"Really?" Alice chuckled a bit. "I have complete control over him, Joanna. And do you know what it is he feels? Fear. He's scared that this time he's lost. He wants to kill me, but at the same time, he's _so afraid_ to die."

"I _will _do it."

"I'm sure you will, if you have no other choice. Give me a bit longer. As soon as I have the binding link between me and him, I'll let you have poor, dear, screwed-up Dean Winchester back. Promise."

"I'm sure you'll forgive me if I say there's no way in hell I'm going to let you do that and walk away."

"Yes." A nod, as if that was the reply she had expected all along. _The sick bitch is having _fun.

"And I'm sure you'll forgive me if I say now I'm going to have to kill you." He leapt at her, knife in hand. There was a clunk as the blade sunk into the wooden handle of the shovel. Jo spun the shovel in an effort to shake him off her, but Alice whipped around and backhanded her, smearing her face with Dean's blood, temporarily blinding her.

Dean slammed her against the side of the shed and once again lifted his knife. Jo kicked at his kneecap and as he winced in pain, she managed to grasp his wrist, holding him barely inches away from her throat.

She had hit him once and almost broke his nose, long ago when the brothers had first come to the Roadhouse, but that was more through luck than any particular talent on her behalf. He had been unprepared, arrogant and overconfident.

Now he knew what was coming, knew how much of a fight Jo was capable of putting up, and used his weight and height to his advantage. Alice had Dean's teeth bared in a snarl as he looked down on her.

"Dean." She whispered. "Don't do this. Please."

"There is no Dean anymore." He said. "Only me."

She looked into his eyes, searching for the truth, searching for the loyal and courageous man she had fancied when she had been younger. And saw nothing. Only hate and the darkness and the cold.

"Help me!" She shouted. "Help!"

"This is a bar for hunters, sweetheart." He hissed. "They all know now that answering a cry for help in the deep of night is certain death. No one will come out to investigate until morning." A sickly sadistic smile. "But isn't this what you always wanted, Jo? You in Dean's arms, his body pressed against yours?" The knife inched closer to her skin.

Jo stared into Dean's eyes, and her face twisted in anger, in repulsion. "I'm sorry." She said, before bringing her knee up directly into his groin, using his temporary loss of concentration to knock the knife from his hand.

"Now you've _really _pissed me off!" He grasped a fistful of her long blonde hair and yanked her back. The two of them tumbled back in a flurry of snow.

Dean kept forcing Jo further into the snow as he wrapped his strong hands around her throat. She choked, clawing at him wildly. She knew that it was only a matter of moments before she was dead. She would _not _allow that to happen.

"_Vampire!" _She screamed, relying on her feminine piercing pitch to make herself heard. Her voice had become several octaves higher thanks to Dean's weight on her throat. _"Vampire loose on the grounds!"_

It was a matter of seconds before each light in the bar switched on and the back door burst open, pouring forth a dozen seasoned hunters in their pyjamas or sweatpants, all of them packing whatever they could grab in the rush to get out.

Sam was the last to emerge, a shotgun by his side. He took in the scene, and froze. "No…"

Dean's weight was yanked off her, and the air whooshed back into Jo's lungs.

"Oh, sweetie…" Ellen sank by her side, pulling a crumpled tissue out to mop at her face.

"It's not my blood."

"What's this, then?" Her mother took the hand Jo had been holding Dean back with. The palm was sliced right through the middle.

"I… I didn't feel…" She shook her head to try and dispel the dizziness. "Alice is in him, Mom. God, the exorcism didn't work."

* * *

_The exorcism didn't work._

Ellen thought that those words would be with her until her dying day.

_The exorcism didn't work._

If their most faithful ally, the Roman Ritual, failed them, then what hope did they have left? _What else did they have left?_

"Mom? It's okay."

She glanced toward her daughter, her hand bound tight and her hair a messy halo around her head like it had been when she was eight. Ellen smiled and reached out for her. _"Mom, it's okay."_ How many times over the years had Jo said that? Hugged her and said everything was going to be all right, when Ellen was supposed to be the one to offer the reassurance.

"I… I really am sorry." Sam said softly. Ellen could hardly hear him, but Jo reached out and took his hand, for the first time in her life the peacemaker. "I should have listened."

"Yes, you should." There was still some hostility in her voice, though she hid it well. "But I know why. He's your brother. You've got to be there for your family." _That's why I came back in the first place. I couldn't leave Mom out here alone._

Sam's eyes took on a dreamy quality for a moment. "Yeah." Then he snapped back to attention.

Ellen had shepherded most of her clients back to their rooms, insisting that she could take it from here, but not before she had two of her burliest partons tie Dean down to one of her sturdiest wooden chairs. Mac the Knife, as he was called, had twirled a stake expertly in his hand.

"You _sure _we can't stake him? Just to be certain?"

"I'm sure, Mac. Go away."

"Yes, Ellen." He said meekly, before slinking away like a dog that had been kicked.

Sam hadn't noticed before, but as soon as you walked into the Bar and crossed to the front counter, you had to step directly over and directly under two different Devil's Traps. It was really a rather nice setup. A possessed hunter could not walk toward the counter, the staffroom door, or the staircase that lead to the second storey, nor could he go backwards, out toward the street, leaving him as prey for the other hunters.

It was so simple it was ingenious.

That was where Dean was now, on top of and under these two Traps.

"Will it hold him?"

"It's held back demons before, Sam. I have no idea whether it'll work on a Reaper, since..."

_Since technically they're not a demon._

"What do we do?" He asked. He felt lost. Was this what Dean felt like all those times he was possessed, or hurt, or just wandered off? Completely helpless?

"Start with the basics." Ellen said gruffly, gesturing for Jo. Jo reached for a bowl of water Ruben had left on the counter. _Holy water. _"Time to wake up, sunshine." Ellen said, and her daughter threw the water in his face.

Dean woke with a start, coughing and spluttering. One of Ellen's friends had delivered such a wack to the back of his head that his lights had been temporarily put out.

_Nothing's steaming. Nothing's eating into him. Nothing's hurting him. _Dean looked up at them, his eyes burning with anger because now he was cold, tied to a chair, and _wet._

"That was mildly annoying." He said. He shook his head like a dog to dispel some of the water. "And pray tell what exactly that was supposed to achieve?"

Jo looked at Ellen, Ellen looked at Ruben, Ruben looked at Sam. Dean stared straight up into the smoke-blackened, wooden rafters, as if he knew what would be there even though it was covered in soot and grime.

"Oh, _please_." He said. "I expected at least you people to know that something like that wouldn't do anything to someone like me."

"What do you want with my brother?" Sam demanded. "Alice, I'm talking to you!"

"All right, all right. No need to shout." Alice Summers looked up at him through his brother's eyes. "To tell you God's honest truth, dear, I don't really want your brother at all. He was a convenient way to hide, that's all."

Ellen took hold of her daughter's arm to keep her from stepping forward. "I couldn't care for staying in Dean for a long period of time. Sure, the toy looks flashy on the outside, but something's broken just under the wrapping."

"What do you want?" He stepped into the Trap and towered over her, a dark glower on his face.

"First I just wanted his blood." Alice said. "Bind him tightly to me so one can't live without the other. I could still exist." Then she smiled. It was Dean's smile with something more repulsive, even darker beneath the surface. "But now you're asking me, I'll think I'll have you instead."

Sam stepped back, fingers flared out. "Look, I'm really honoured and all, but I'm not really into that sorta thing. You know, you're a dead girl, in the body of my brother, which makes it doubly weird."

"You killed us, you know. This is your fault." The eyes were dark with hate.

"What?"_ This is my fault how?_

"Murdered us. And then refusing to assume your powers meant that we who became something greater were condemned for all eternity, _hunted_ for all eternity."

Sam swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. "You're one of the…"

"The Gifted Ones. The Chosen Ones. The Ones that should have lead this world into a new era."

"But-"

"My fear was my gift. If I _really _wanted it, I would make people so scared and irrational that they tore each other apart. I guess becoming a Reaper was the next step in my psychological makeup. The power it gave… oh, but you know about the power, don't you, Sam? The power to kill, grind their bones into a powder without even breaking a sweat…"

_The power, his to command. He could crush those that resisted him. A soldier, THE soldier in the oncoming Great Storm…_"Stop it. Stop it now." Sam snapped, frightened by the thoughts and memories her words had roused.

"Poor Sammy. Did I hit a nerve?" She frowned. "But as soon as Azazel died, we were all outcast, stripped of our ranks and the majority of our powers. We had only one purpose. To find you and make you _pay._"

_Dean wasn't just some random attack. He was used to get to YOU._

_This has always been about getting to you._

"You can try to get rid of me if you want. Exorcise me, or whatever else you people do. But you have to remember one thing. You can't kill _Death_." And she ripped Dean's arms up, tearing through the ropes binding them almost as if they weren't there.

And he seized Sam around the throat, fingers digging in.

"You have lived-" Alice said deeply into Sam's panic-stricken eyes. "Long enough. You have cheated death long enough."

Jo was the first to start forward. Stooping, she raised a barstool high over her head, but as she was about to bring it crashing down on the back of his skull, Dean turned, glaring at her coldly. He slapped her hard across the face and she stumbled back, her vision swimming.

She flung herself into the fray once more, brandishing the stool, but Dean seized one of the legs and shoved it back with such force that Jo was catapulted over the top of the bar, smashing several bottles of booze on her way down. As she slowly got to he feet again, she uttered such a string of curses it would have made her father blush in shame.

"Come on, someone a little more challenging, please." Alice laughed. It was almost like this was all a great game to her.

There was a click.

"No one touches my daughter. Especially not a sick bitch like you." Alice turned, and found herself staring down the barrel of Ellen Harvelle's shotgun. Her grip loosened on Sam, and he struggled free. "I swear," Ellen growled. "Give me one reason and I'll blow your goddamn head off."

"You would kill Dean with me."

"He's a Winchester." She said, and, really, that was all the explanation needed. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Sam's eyes were big as he watched her wordlessly, begging her not to kill his brother. Jo raised her hand in a pleading gesture. "Mom. Don't do it."

Ellen kept him in her sights for a moment longer. "Aw, hell." She cussed, lowering her weapon.

"You shouldn't have done that." Alice said, raising a hand once more. Ellen stood her ground, her gaze unwavering. The Reaper paused, and uncertainty rippled over Dean's face. _She wasn't afraid! But they were always afraid! Why is this one different?_

Something moved behind Jo. She whipped her head around to catch it, but it had already moved on. _What the hell…? _Her mother had placed a long mirror down one of the walls, as with some creatures, you could only see their reflections.

And for a long moment, Jo had been certain she could see some sort of black animal staring out, with huge, feline, yellow eyes.

_Trick of the light. You DID hit your head on the way down. _She rose and knelt by Sam. "Can you move?"

"Yeah." He croaked, his voice huskier than usual. He lent heavily on her shoulder as they made their way to behind the counter. Then something flashed across the glass of the bottles on the wall. Jo stopped dead.

"Did you see that?" She turned back to her mother and Dean, that feeling of impending doom once again heavy in her stomach. Alice was standing completely still, looking quite terrified, Dean's eyes darting this way and that.

"Mom." Jo shouted. "Get away!"

Ellen feinted back immediately. If someone like Jo, who rarely was completely happy anymore and rarely got sad, sounded terrified, the best thing to do was what they said.

And then it came.

"No!" Alice shrieked. "Not now! Get you gone from here!"

It was a shadow, undulating and bulging unevenly as it moved. They could see it circle the room through mirrors, glass, and any other glossy surface. And suddenly it pounced for Dean, jaws open wide. He was battered down to the floor.

"No!"

Jo watched in morbid fascination as it lowered its massive head to his chest that ripped something away from him, throwing it up into the air. At once, Dean stopped moving. The thing watched with steady yellow eyes as the turbulent cloud hissed and spat so near it's head. Then it reached out a paw and casually ripped it apart.

There was a very human and very feminine scream.

"You don't think that…" Jo began. "That can't be the…"

It was huge, vaguely catlike creature, possibly a long extinct species. The shadow beast gazed at them, his yellow eyes strangely peaceful compared to the other creatures they had met up with in the past. _But then, I suppose death is relatively peaceful. _

"There really _is _a Grim Reaper." Sam said softly, as if he was actually having trouble believing it now they were face to face. It turned and looked at him, not speaking, and cocked his head to the side. He did not move from that spot, as he had no further business there and he knew it.

At least not yet.

It nodded once, a smooth incline of the head, as if he knew they would meet again some day. And then he was gone.


	14. Grownup Christmas List

_**5.45pm**_

_**Christmas Day:**_

Cold sunlight was poking determined fingers around the gaps in the thick grey curtains and rudely prodded the sleeper reluctantly awake.

For a moment he just lay straight in the bed and squinted at the ceiling fixtures until the birdsong outside his window began to seriously grate on his nerves and he pulled the blankets over his head, jamming the pillow in his ears.

"Go _away_." He murmured. It was almost as if everything and everyone went out of their way to annoy him. _I am _so _gonna be having me some pigeon pie today if they don't shut the hell up._

"Oh, screw this." Finally he could take no more of their cheeriness and kicked back the blankets. _Come out and enjoy Christmas Day, Mister Scrooge!_

"Bah humbug." He said aloud, running his hands through his short hair. "God, that was one hell of a nightmare."

He felt like hitting something. Alive wasn't necessary but sure added a perk. Dean reached for his clothes. His watch read 5.45.

"In the _afternoon_?" The last time he had slept in was when he was maybe nine. Even when he was kind-of dating Cassie, he always rose at the same time each day, which she thought was pretty obnoxious. You hunted at night and researched at day. If you got time to sleep at all you were pretty damn lucky. Time wasted in sleep could be time used saving lives. "Jeez."

The landing was deserted. _Oh no, not this again_, he thought for a moment, until the most alluring smell wafted toward his nose. He hadn't actually eaten it for so long that he had to think for a moment about what it was.

_Someone was cooking turkey? Here? Seriously?_ _I expected a peanut butter sandwich and a can of beer like last Christmas. _One hand on the banister, he cautiously journeyed down into Harvelle territory, half expecting to be attacked at any moment.

All the Bar's holiday lodgers seemed to have congregated downstairs, drinking, smoking, smiling and laughing. Dean was aware of his jaw dropping at the sight of hard-bitten hunters actually _enjoying _themselves. He'd grown up thinking that to be admitted into the club, you had to be as emotionless as possible.

Apparently not.

"They don't have anywhere else to go." A voice behind him. He turned and met the eyes of the Bar's most eligible bachelorette.

He was still feeling a little light-headed. Either he was still coming down from being possessed by the screwed-up spirit of Alice Summers, or not all the hunters congregated in the bar area were strictly tobacco smokers "What?"

Jo motioned with her towel. "They don't have anywhere else to go." She said. "No family, no friends. So they come here for Christmas."

"Ah. Gotcha. Sort of like a pyjama party with guns thing." Dean sat at the bottom of the stairs. Jo perched beside him. "Do we have a Secret Santa too?" He asked half-seriously.

"Only if they're trying to score." Jo gave a small smile. "How are you feeling?" She asked.

_Ah. So it wasn't a dream._

"Like someone's hit me in the head several times with a baseball bat." He replied. "So. What's cooking?"

"Christmas dinner." She said matter-of-factly. "Mom does one every year for everyone staying with us, ever since Dad died. Funny, 'cause she used to be a horrible cook when she started out. Just watch out for her eggnog."

"More nog than your egg?"

"Yeah." She gave him a look then, a long, searching one from under hooded eyes that made Dean feel ever so slightly uncomfortable.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"C'mon…"

"Are you sure you're alright?" Jo blurted. "You still look a little green around the gills."

"The only think hacking me off is people asking me if I'm fine." Dean said. "Do you know where Sam is?"

"Where else? On his computer."

"Tell him to drag his sorry corpse over here a sec."

"I'm not your maid." But there was a smile in her voice as she said it. "Oi, Sam! Get out here a sec!"

"Jeez, I could have done that."

Jo flipped her hair up over her shoulder before getting up to continue her various jobs. Dean watched her walk away a Sam came out of the kitchen, once again stooping to clear the doorway without scraping his head.

"Heya, Droopy."

"Look in the mirror." Sam sniffed.

"Hey, man, are you pissed off with me? What the hell gives you the right to be pissed off with me this time?" Puzzlement switched to annoyance in a flash. "_I _was the one in the firing line. _I_ was the one that took the bullet."

"That's just it! You always put yourself in the firing line, you always take the bullet. Dammit Dean, how long do you reckon you can keep this up until you _wont_ be coming back?"

"Dude, can we for once _not _do the whole family drama?"

The fledging argument shuddered to a grinding halt.

"Maybe that was outta line." Sam said finally.

"Damn straight."

"…But you're my big brother. This'll probably sound as corny as hell, but you're the only thing I have left."

"Dear God, I told you to stay out of the Mills & Boon."

That cracked a smile, but it was gone in a flash as Sam endeavoured to stay serious. "For a while there," He confessed. "For a while there… I thought that this time you were really going to die."

Dean glanced sideways at his little brother, his straight nose and thin face and always earnest eyes. "You know," He said, and Sam looked up.

"For a while there so did I."

_And lo, another Winchester Christmas came and went, only this time it was spent companionably among friends, both new and old._

Sam had never come to understand why Dad had been that anti-Christmas on that long ago day. He had his suspicions, but was never able to gather enough evidence to say for sure one thing or another. Only much later did he find out that Dad's friend Bill Harvelle died on Christmas Eve, though not the same one. Only much later did he find out that was when John was cast out of among the hunters.

_The brothers never found out about the photo in the Journal. The secret of who the other man had been Dad had taken to his grave._

And in the end, Sam shrugged his shoulders and gave up trying to solve another mystery on top of all the other things he had been trying to analyse over the years: the Yellow-eyed Demon, the psychics, Mary Winchester, his brother, and even himself.

_Some secrets were best kept buried._

The door burst open once again, a flurry of snow sending a chill through the bar. Mac the Knife hobbled in, only his eyes visible through a slit in his balaclava. From the sparkle in them, Sam could tell he was the bearer of bad news.

"There's a job not far east from here. Some archaeologist was possessed on his last dig, and it looks like he's gunning for some dude from the FBI."

Sam tried, he really did, but despite himself a small bubble of excitement formed in his chest. But before he could say anything, Dean jumped in.

"We'll take it. No prob." He shrugged.

"No way." Jo cut in.

"What?"

"Why should you have all the fun? This one's mine." She turned to her mother. "What do you say, Mom? Fancy one last spin around the block?"

Ellen raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Hell, why not?"

"You can't-"

"Oh, one more thing, Dean: You're not the boss of me."

_A merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night._

_**6.30pm**_

_**Christmas Day:**_

Maybe some good did come out of it in the end. Being held captive and all.

That night Uncle Jude invited Mary and her foster parents around for Christmas dinner, and about fifteen minutes ago now, Dad had stood and announced that he and Mom were going to give their marriage another shot.

Mary was now confronted with the choice of going to Australia in the New Year, or staying here with Uncle Jude and his girlfriend Lisa. Neither choice sounded particularly appealing, but Mary wasn't about to say that in earshot of the adults or Lisa's son, a long, lanky boy with a taste for teasing her mercilessly.

So she smiled and nodded politely and pretended she was interested in their inane conversation as more guests began to arrive. Maybe she had been too premature in insisting that she was well enough to leave the hospital. She needed some air.

The final straw came when Lisa asked her whether she'd like to sit at the baby table with the other snot-nosed brats, and Mary knew she had enough. She'd declined politely before gravely informing her parents that she was going outside, maybe walk around the block.

Tony and Alex objected at once. Going for a walk was what had started this chain of events. Surely they would be neglecting their child by refusing her an escort for her short excursion?

That was when her soon-to-be cousin stepped in. "I'll go with her." He said brightly. "No problem."

Mary glowered at her as he grinned back, all wide-eyed and innocent; seemingly unaware of the animosity she was giving off in waves.

"If you're sure." Dad said uncertainly, teetering between not wanting to let Mary out without supervision and not wanting to get up from his comfortable chair by the fire to go out with her.

"Yeah, Uncle Tony. It'll be fine."

Mary glared at him furiously, annoyed beyond reason that he would even have the gall to call Dad Uncle Tony. She pasted a smile onto her face. "Yeah. That'd be great."

The door closed heavily behind them.

"What's your deal?" Mary asked sharply, her breath coming out in a cloud of steam.

"What? Can't I spend a little time with my cousin?"

"I'm not your cousin. Even if your mom marries Uncle Jude I'll never be your cousin."

"Oh, that's right. You're a fugly little orphan, aren't you?"

"Bite me, jerk." She snapped back. He laughed.

"Alright." He said. "I'm off to see the boys for fifteen. Wait for me at Benny's. Don't go anywhere until I show up. You have your phone, right?"

"Yes, Dad." Mary rolled her eyes as he jogged off up the street.

_Benny's_ was an ice cream parlour a bit further up the block, although the current owner was a nice redheaded woman named Sybil. Mary sighed, shoving her mittened hands into a too-big cracked leather jacket that Tony said used to belong to her real mom.

Sighing, she took a step toward the door. Christmas. What was it about, really? Turkey and ham and trees and presents. Mary had those. Family?

A big, fat _nope_ to that one. She loved Dad and Mom, and she knew they tried their best, but she still would have loved to at least _know _her real family. But whenever she broached the subject, suddenly all the adults got extremely cagey.

"You going in, or not?"

She spun, scattering snow about her in a wide arc. "Oh my God!" She squealed, then clapped her hands to her mouth in embarrassment at her girlish glee.

He grinned, hands on his hips. He was rakishly good-looking and he knew it. "Call me Dean."

Mary smiled, and kicked him sharply in the shin.

"Hey, ow! What did I do this time?" Dean demanded with a hurt expression.

"I thought you were dead! I thought you were dead and you let me believe that for God knows how long! You absolute _sadist_!"

"I have to say," Sam said solemnly. "The kid knows you well." As Mary swung around to face him, two angry red splotches in her cheeks, he backed away, hands outstretched in front of him.

"And you!" The girl raged, spinning around to the tall, gangly man that could only be Dean's brother. "You got me to tell you everything and then just hung up on me! You don't even tell me what you're going to try to do!"

"You hung up on her?" Dean pursed his lips. "Man, what a burn."

"I told you we should have phoned. It's safer, long distance."

"Were you following me?" Mary demanded. "Tailing a ten year old girl down the street? You dudes, you do know that that's just _sick_, right?"

For a minute second, both adults almost looked guilty. Almost.

"I was. I'm not sure about him." Dean said unabashedly. "Problem?"

She stopped and thought for a moment. "Strangely enough, even though that confession should be cause for alarm, no."

"Bloody hell." Sam said softly. "She's like a little _you_."

"I shall take that as a complement."

"Really? _I _find it deeply offensive." Mary countered, and the duo grinned. Sam put a hand to his forehead in exasperation.

"Oh, Lord."

"Who was the caped crusader?" Dean asked when the three of them were seated. The waitress had given him a dazzling smile before asking him what he and his niece would like, almost virtually ignoring Sam. Dean asked for a sundae for Mary before ordering such an extravagant bowl of ice cream for himself that Mary's mouth fell open.

"It's a surprise you still have teeth left in your head."

"I only get this sort of stuff about every five years or so. The rest of the time I'm living off roadhouse dinners that taste like old shoes." He said, before shovelling a spoonful into his mouth.

Sam nodded his assent.

"Sounds rough." Mary said. "Okay, you _really _want to know who the jerk I was with earlier is? His mom is going to marry my uncle next summer. Then there's no way I can get him out of my hair now."

"Maybe you'll end up liking him." Sam said helpfully.

Dean frowned. "Just don't like him _too _much. It would be entirely too weird for you to start dating your foster-step-cousin, or whatever the hell he is." Sam noticed the protective note in his brother's voice and felt for a moment an irrational twang of jealousy.

Mary pulled a face, looking and sounding, for the first time since Sam had met her face to face, like a little girl.

"Ew! You've gotta be kidding me. He's like, like Jar-Jar Binks annoying little brother the family disowned because he was too much of a spaz. He's king of the dorks."

"Yes, you can just feel the love tonight."

"Shove a banana in it, college boy. Has the mister has been giving you a hard time? Give me his name and address and I'll go beat him up for you."

She grinned. "No, really, Ben's not that bad, I guess. He's got a lot of quirks that take a _lot_ of getting used to."

"Tell me about it."

"His name's Ben?"

"Yeah. Him and his mom came over here from Indiana a while back. Her and Mrs Sims own a studio downtown. She does yoga and alternative dance. I can't see the logic behind twisting my body into a pretzel, myself. B-uuut I guess some guys get a kick out of it. Well, seeing a woman do it."

Dean's jaw didn't drop like Sam half expected it to, but he certainly got a dazed, stunned expression on his face like he'd just been slapped with something cold and slimy. _Kids. Best shock-jocks in the world. Best thing is, they don't even know they're doing it._

_It's unbelievable how small this world really is._

"Dean? You okay?"

"Yeah. Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

""It's just… you're looking…" She chewed her lip, searching for the word. "Shellshocked."

"Really, it's cool." Dean glanced at his watch before scanning outside the shop. "Fifteen's almost up. Me and Sammy better hit the road."

"Oh, but-"

Dean hit Sam's shoulder. "Gimme a pen." He reached over and took her hand, scrawling a series of numbers across her palm. "My number." He said. "You get in trouble, or you hear about any… bad things happening, give me a ring. Just-"

"Don't tell anyone I met you, I ever saw you, or that I even know you exist. Yeah, I know, I've been briefed. Be invisible, right?"

Mary looked uncomfortably down at the table, and Sam suddenly felt like an eavesdropper in the conversation. "I know I can't ask you to stay safe, 'cause you probably wont. I'd like to say I feel better now I know that there are people like you and your brother out there, but that would be a lie." She sighed.

"The world just got a whole lot scarier."

_**Lawrence, Kansas**_

_**24 December 1993:**_

_The phone rang. He didn't recognise the number that flashed up briefly on the caller ID. "Hello?"_

_There was a long pause. He was about to slam the receiver down and curl up beside his wife once more when the caller said two words in a hoarse and cracked voice._

"_It's John."_

"_That isn't funny Screw you, pal." He felt anger rising, pissed off that someone still had the gall to prank the family. After the fire and all those weird questions that followed, there had been nothing but young punks phoning both houses and claiming to be the Devil, or assorted demons._

_It was ruthless, the way the vultures had descended. John's eccentricity had come back to plague them all. Especially after he packed up Dean and little Sammy and vamoosed._

"_Drew. How are the kids?"_

_Slowly Drew sat up. Alison mumbled something as her arm slipped from about his waist. "It is you." Then an uncomfortable thought occurred to him. "Are you alright? You aren't in any trouble, are you?"_

"_No, no… I'm… fine." He seemed surprised that someone would genuinely enquire about his health._

"_God, there's nothing wrong with the boys, is there?" An even more disturbing possibility._

"_No, I… they…" His voice shook, and for a moment Drew thought the line must have dropped out. Then he returned, his voice more rough and husky than ever. "You're in danger. They're coming back. You have to get out of the house right now."_

"_What the hell are you talking about, you dork?" Drew's voice grew frosty. "I could be putting myself in danger because I'm talking to you right now." Beside him, he was aware of Alison beginning to stir._

"_Please-"_

"_What in the name of all that's holy have you been doing, kid? Dammit, you're a suspect in the Beaumont murder case." He took a terse breath and held it, hating to even think of the possibility. "Just tell me you didn't really do it."_

_Silence._

"_Tell me!" He hissed_

"_I wish I could say I wasn't involved."_

_That was all the answer he needed. Drew's hands clenched around the receiver as if he wished it had been John's neck. "I'm hanging up now." He said coldly._

_His voice hardly shook at all._

"_No-!"_

"_Goodbye, John. I don't want to see you again. I don't want you to call this house again. Don't call my work, and leave Alison's friends alone." A deep breath. "And if you ever come near my children, I swear I'll hunt you down wherever this little crusade of yours is taking you and I'll kill you."_

_It was no idle threat. Drew had been in the Marines for four years before John had even thought of enlisting._

"_When did this happen?" John asked plaintively. "When were we reduced to this?"_

"_Probably the same time you fell off the wagon. Damn, Mary was like a little sister to me. I loved the girl to bits, but do you think she would have wanted to see what you're doing to yourself? What you're doing to her boys?"_

"_You have no idea what I'm doing."_

"_Running from town to town, acting like fugitives? Aliases, credit scams, hustling? Turning your boys into some sort of super soldiers?"_

"_How did you-?"_

"_I got the same training you did. Sport."_

"_What I'm doing is to protect them!" John burst out over the phone._

"_Protect them from what, Johnny? Answer me that."_

"_Demons! Demons, Drew. They're real and they're out there and they're dangerous and for some reason they killed my Mary! And I'm gonna find the son of a bitch who did it and make him pay!" He took a ragged breath. "Whatever it is tried to hunt us, to kill us. But we weren't where they expected us to be. So instead they're coming to kill you! To hurt me!"_

"_Oh my God. Are you even listening to yourself?" A strange stillness settled over him._

"_Please. Drew. Get Alison and the kids out of there right now. Hide. No, go to Missouri Moseley, she'll keep you safe."_

"_Are you absolutely INSANE?"_

"_If you don't want to do it for me, do it for your kids." He sounded almost desperate._

"_See you around, Johnny. Or not."_

_Drew hung up._

_**Lawrence, Kansas**_

_**25 December 1993:**_

_The fire had started in the master bedroom and spread quickly to the rest of the house. The police said that the homeowner Andrew Winchester and his wife Alison had asphyxiated due to smoke inhalation and didn't suffer when they began to burn._

_John had doubts about that one._

_Thirteen-year-old Cameron had smelled the smoke and ran to rouse his twelve-year-old brother Jack and nine-year-old sister Anne. They made it all the way to the front door, before realising that all the doors and windows were locked fast._

_When their screams for help heralded nothing, Jack and Cam made the most important decision of their short lives. Together they smashed a window and managed to lift Anne through, where she dropped into the snow as the rest of the house began to burn._

_As least that's what the fireman that had gingerly picked her up out of the way managed to get out of her, so garbled and shocked by what she had seen that she was hardly comprehensible. And then she began to cry, huge wrenching sobs that tore at John's heart as he watched from the shadows. This little girl he had heard about, but never actually seen._

_Over the years he tracked her progress like she was an animal for his observation, never getting close enough for her to spot him and never letting on to Dean that he had a quarry that wasn't otherwise dangerous or monstrous. Finally, when she was nineteen, he got up the courage to knock on her door._

_She told him to get away from her or she'd call the police. As he left, convinced she could now look after herself, he heard Anne's boyfriend say she shouldn't go working herself up like that. Especially in her condition._

_It took two months until he heard through a friend of a friend about the blaze. The boyfriend had fled; some said he had been terrified for his life, should he stay. Some had said that he was afraid that the 'monsters' would come back. Anne had died in the fire._

_The only thing left was the baby._

_John tried to find the child, he really did, but in the end death came just too quickly._

_All he had was a name…_

**A/N**

The Christmas carols and other Christmas songs I have referenced as chapter titles belong to their writers and whoever else responsible for them. I don't own Supernatural or anything associated.

Mary Morgan _is_ proudly mine and seems to be my best-received female character in a fanfic so far.

A **Kallicantzaros** is of Greek origin and is thought to be a mischievous goblin of some kind, though depictions vary. According to myth, a child born on 25 December stands a strong chance of becoming one. Legend dictates that the only ways to cure and/or repel one is to bind it in hay or threaten it with garlic. Sometimes they appear animalistic.

A **Reaper** (as we all probably know) is responsible for gathering the souls of the dead. They can (mythologically speaking) hold back death or kill without warning. The Grim Reaper, with his scythe and his cape is at the centre of Reaper lore. I would be very surprised if the logic followed in this story had any real substance to it. It's based on a lot of guessing and what would be possibly entertaining.

Many thanks to all readers and reviewers.


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